Butterfly
by stinkyhead
Summary: The butterfly effect tells us that a seemingly insignificant occurrence can lead to drastic changes to the world around us. Just how far reaching will the sudden appearance of Nii Yugito outside Konoha be? Main pairing will be Naruto/Hinata.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor have I ever claimed to.

A/N: Sorry, this may take a bit.

As with most of my stories, I'll start of by warning you, the reader, that this will be a AU fic that may or may not connect with canon at certain points. To be honest, I haven't gotten very far in it yet so I'm not sure where it's going or how it's going to get there. For those of you who are familiar with my writing style, you should know that I rarely have any idea where a story is going. I simply write and if I don't happen to like what is being written, I re-write it. I try not to plan to far ahead, aside from small ideas, because I like to let ideas come to me as a story progresses. This means that I sometimes, more often than I would like, suffer from writers block and need to step away from a story.

Now for a bit of a rant. I am not perfect and I work without a Beta so I'm sure that I WILL make mistakes in grammar and spelling. I honestly don't mind someone pointing out a mistake I make multiple times, as it will only help me improve my writing, but I do not wish to receive a page long review listing every single one of them. If you feel the need to list them all, do so in a PM and I'll try and fix them. Also, while I'd rather they didn't, I know that some people simply won't be able to keep themselves from flaming my story. As a rule of mine, I will probably make fun of review itself or the author of said review in my next post(or completely ignore it). I feel that if you can freely critic me and my work, I should be able to do the same to you and yours.... I can be rather petty at times and I've been told by family and friends that I am far too stubborn for my own good.

I make it a point to try and answer each and every question asked in a review, if I'm able and if it does not reveal anything that may happen later in the story. I also pretty much ignore reviews that say 'Update Soon!' or something along those lines. While all reviews are appreciated, I prefer those that actually show me that you were paying attention. I am also not the type of person who will hold off on posting until I receive a certain amount of reviews. I post when I feel a chapter is ready, it may take awhile but it has nothing to do with how many reviews I've received.

.... I've edited this I don't know how many times because I always forget to add something. This story will be rated M because of language and, later on, possible graphic violence. At the moment it would be more of a T rating but I know of a few people who do not read M rated stories and I didn't want to suddenly change my rating. It is also, at the moment, listed under General. This will change as the story progresses. If you bothered to read my profile, you should know that I write a lot of comedy and a lot of romance, both of which will be included in this story but at the moment I can't really bring myself to limit it to a specific genre.

EDIT: PLEASE READ!

Because so many people have commented on how 'confusing' and 'disappointing' it is to have my story under the Narto/Yugito section despite the fact that they are not paired, I guess they couldn't be bothered to read the note I posted in this chapter explaining that those boxes simply mean that both charaters will play an important role in a given story, so I've decided to change it to Naruto/Hinata. I'd exacly like this, but I only posted this story last night and I've already gotten twenty or so PM's complaining and I'd really rather not have to explain to each and every one of them why I placed this story under Naruto/Yugito. So, for those who are looking, it will be under Naruto/Hinata from now on. I only hope certain shippers will give this story a far chance before dismissing it.

At this point the only pairing that is set in stone is my main pairing of Naruto and Hinata. I have a vague idea of who may or may not be paired together, I'm toying with pairing Sakura together with someone unexpected(at least I hope it will be unexpected), but feel free to offer suggestions for anyone else. I am NOT a shipper, so any pairing given will be looked at and considered. I have around 70 stories in the works with Naruto paired with just about ever canon woman under the sun, although I'll freely admit to having a soft spot for Hinata.W ABOUT IT!

I received one review asking about my comparing Yugito and Naruto/Nibi and Kyuubi. I don't ever remember saying that they were even close to being equal, but I thought I'd explain for future readers. Nibi is nowhere close to being as powerful as Kyuubi, as most of you would expect. Yugito, at this point in time, is FAR more powerful that Naruto simply because she has been training to control Nibi's chakra far longer and that is ontop of her other training in the shinobi arts. While Naruto has the POTENTIAL to surpass her, and rather quickly, for now he is nowhere close to her level.

* * *

Chapter 1.

Nii Yugito, a young woman whose heart and mind were so clouded by the pain of betrayal that her instincts alone guided her as she forced her battered body forward by sheer force of will. Her eye's stared out ahead of her but registered nothing as she raced across the treetops of some unknown location. She knew she should have been paying closer attention to her surroundings but after what had happened to her, after what her own village had done, she only knew that her feet were still moving and at that moment that was all she wanted to know of the outside world. The world that had created her, used her, and planed to throw her away the moment they no longer needed her.

"I had no say in becoming what I am and yet I am persecuted for the sins of my demon."

Her whispered voice displayed the pain she truly felt and yet her face remained without a single emotion. A mask if cold indifference. At a young age she had become a master of hiding her pain behind a face that didn't care but her mask was beginning to crack under the strain of her demon. Her demon was unlike those of other shinobi and yet it weighted heavily on her shoulders with such a force that no one could truly understand unless they had gone through exactly what she had. While other shinobi merely felt guilt for killing someone or doing something they now regretted, Yugito's demon was, in fact, a demon. A demon of incredible power that had once threatened to reduce her village to nothing more than a charred shadow of what was once one of the most powerful shinobi villages in the world.

During the time of her birth, the shinobi of Kumogakure no Sato(Village Hidden Among the Clouds) fought valiantly against the feared beast known as Nibi no Nekomata. The shinobi fought bravely but the demon was far too powerful to be brought down by their attacks. Finally, in a move that forever immortalized their leader as a hero, the Sandaime Raikage gave her life to seal the Bijuu inside of a newborn child. Unknowingly, the Sandaime Raikage cursed that child to a fate most would consider to be worse than death itself. She grew up alone and unloved. The kaa-san and tou-san that had brought her into the world abandoned her and labeled her a demon. Try as she might the young girl was unable to escape the cursed existence until one day she found something to live for. She would train and protect those who had created her and shunned her and prove that she was no monster, that they had been wrong and had been the real monsters.

As she grew the young woman trained until her body simply couldn't continue. She graduated the shinobi academy at the age of six and was promoted to Chuunin at the age of eight. At the age of fourteen the village had no choice but to promote her once again to the rank of Jounin. And still she trained in not only the shinobi arts but in focusing and controlling the power sealed inside of her. She had never lost a teammate and never failed a mission and yet still those around her looked at her as if the moment their back was turned she would attack. She fought with everything she had to protect them and yet it was never good enough for any of them.

Yes, the pain Nii Yugito felt was a pain most people could never imagine even in their wildest nightmares. A pain of being unloved, unwanted, and persecuted against despite the numerous times she had saved their lives... and yet she continued to fight for them. To fight so that they were safe in their homes, safe to hate and despise her in peace.

Finally a day came when even her longing to be loved and acknowledged had reached it's limit. A day Yugito knew she would never forget regardless of how long she might live. It had started out like any other day; she trained until her body was reduced to a quivering mass of pain before struggling to her feet and continuing. As she made her third customary lap around the village, she had decided that a small change in pace and scenery might be nice. It had only been on the slightest of whims that she found out the truth of her village.

During her run she had come upon a man in a black cloak, which had large red clouds scattered throughout it, and a kasa(a traditional bamboo hat). Obviously a cloaked stranger was cause for alarm in the mind of Kumo's second strongest shinobi, second only to the Raikage himself. So, Yugito ignored the rest of her training and began trailing behind the shinobi. Even those of her village could never catch sight of her if she didn't wish them to. Because of this ability, Yugito was given a name in reference to her skills but also the demon within her. Ikiryou(Living Ghost). The name came from both her abilities and Nibi's ability to call upon and control the dead.

As she followed the man she was shocked that he met up with the Raikage's own personal bodyguards and followed them back out of the village without incident. Normally she would have simply returned to what she had been doing while thinking that the person was being taken care of but something just hadn't seemed right to her from the very beginning, especially since the bodyguards had been waiting for the cloaked man and hadn't simply come upon him. Trailing behind them, Yugito had to force herself not to gasp when the Raikage himself appeared next to the man.

It was when she crept closer to listen that she learned the true nature of her village. She listened as the man, who said he was from an organization known as the Akatsuki, offered her Raikage a choice. Hand her over when the time came or be killed. Her Raikage had only laughed at that and told the man that they could 'have the bitch whenever they wanted'. She had known that she was hated but her abilities and power had always been looked at with at least a small amount of grudgingly given respect. The idea that her leader would hand her over so willingly at a threat that seemed arrogant and foolhardy was a powerful slap to the face for the young woman.

As her rage grew and her anger spiked her position was given away as an eerie black and red fiery chakra erupted all around her. From years of unimaginably hard training, Yugito was able to call upon so much of Nibi's power that it actually materialized around her in the shape of said demon. Nibi was never as large as some of the other Bijuu but her power was nothing sneeze at as the shinobi of Kumo had learned first hand all those years ago. While in this form even the Raikage, the nameless man, and the bodyguards were all forced to fight for their lives as she attacked.

The battle had been a long one and resulted in every one of the Raikage's bodyguards being killed but in the end Yugito felt herself tiring and fled. Neither shinobi were willing to chase after the giant flaming cat that had very nearly killed them, so even after the form gave way to a battered young woman, Yugito was still able to continue her escape.

A sudden pain ripped through Yugito's stomach that was powerful enough to force her to stop her running and force her mind away from her thoughts and back to her surroundings. When her eyes focused on the sight in front of her, Yugito's eyes widened and she gave serious thought to turning around and running back to Kumo. She had no idea how long she had been running but ahead of her was yet another shinobi village and yet another place she knew she wouldn't be welcome.

"I doubt I will ever find a place that will welcome me with open arms. People who look at me without fear and give thanks for my presence among them... Or find someone who will love me and not simply lust after my body." Yugito whispered as she forced herself to begin moving forward again, towards yet another place she was sure would try and use her and throw her away when they grew tired of her presence. Her movements were slow and sluggish as her exhaustion was catching up to her in full force.

As she staggered drunkenly towards the village, Yugito found herself hard pressed not to lose consciousness. Channeling so much of Nibi's chakra always left her tired beyond all meaning of the word but never had she been forced to fight for so long in said form and the unimaginable aching of her bones brought tears to her blood red eyes.

If the blood and dirt from her battle and journey were washed away, most people would see a woman of great beauty. A woman who, even in her own village that was filled with people who hated and despised her, was lusted after by almost any man. Her long white hair was usually tired back in a long braid but it now fell free of it's bind and appeared to be splattered with the blood of her enemies. Her crimson eyes and ruby red lips were stunning and the envy of many women. Even her slitted, cat-like pupils were seen as exotic and alluring. Her pale skin and full figure only seemed to make the women of her village hate her even more. Truly she was a beauty most would long to hold. Sadly, she was a 'demon' and was only ever looked at with lust, never the love she longed to see in a persons face as they stared back at her.

"A Jinchuuriki. A being unworthy of love." she whispered softly as she finally stumbled out of the forest and into one of the wide dirt roads leading towards the gates of the village.

Yugito gave a pained laugh that sounded more like a whimper when the shinobi guarding the entrance spotted her. The blood on her lips that had just began to dry, cracked as more shinobi suddenly appeared. As she staggered closer she could see one of them speaking but as her ears began ringing and her vision faded, Yugito took one last step before her body simply gave out. Perhaps the village of Konohagakure no Sato would finally allow her the peace she craved. Perhaps someone within those walls would look at her and see more than a demon, an abomination. Perhaps somewhere in that village there was someone who would love her.

()()()()()()()

When Yugito awoke she whimpered slightly as her entire body continued to feel as though it had been smashed to pieces and roughly forced back together. A small part of her wondered if that had been the case. After all, Kumo and Konoha had always held a deep seeded hatred for each other after years of war and false treaties. She wouldn't have been terribly surprised to open her eyes and find herself staring at a cell ceiling or to find herself in the middle of some grotesque torture.

However those thoughts were forced out of her mind when she realized that she was laying on a pleasantly soft mattress while her head rested on an equally soft pillow. If this was what was inside of Konoha's cells than Yugito found herself hoping to be a prisoner for a good long while. At least until she was rested and her wounds were healed.

Without even opening her eyes Yugito was able to identify her surroundings. Just by the smell of her sheets and the noise outside her room she was about to tell that she was inside a hospital, and a rather clean on at that. Of course she had never been in a hospital for very long, usually just dropping off someone she had come upon, so it may have been that all hospitals were as clean as the one she was currently in. The sterile scent surrounding her seemed a little excessive but then again, not everyone had a Jinchuuriki's healing abilities. In fact, Yugito was almost positive that she didn't even need to be in the hospital in the first place. Any bed would have done fine as she would have healed in a matter of time anyway.

When her eyes finally fluttered open, Yugito noticed two masked shinobi standing just inside her room beside the door. Both were staring at her and she noted that it wasn't happiness radiating off of them. She was, however, at least a little pleased that for the most part they seemed neutral towards her. The one of the left was staring at her chest a bit longer than she would have liked but she was used to men gawking at her. Even in the hospital gown it was easy to tell that she had a nice figure.

Yugito stared up at the white ceiling even as one of her guards whispered something to someone right outside the door. She could only assume that there were more guards outside her room as it would have been a bit arrogant to only have two shinobi guard an 'enemy' shinobi of unknown skill.

It was nearly an hour later when a gentle knock on the door broke the silence of the room that had Yugito close to screaming simply to stop herself from going insane. Even if she was from an enemy country, her guards could have at least spoken to her a little.

She watched and became slightly nervous when the door opened to reveal a kind looking old man she knew to be the Sandaime Hokage of Konoha. The old man had a compassionate aura surrounding him and a pipe in his mouth but Yugito knew he was not someone to underestimate if you enjoyed living. Yugito watched the elderly shinobi whisper something to the guards before they bowed and disappeared in twin swirls of leaves.

"How are you feeling?" he asked as he moved closer and stood next to her bed. She didn't know why exactly but Yugito found herself amazingly calm considering her situation.

"I'd give anything for a glass of water." she whispered. Just speaking caused her to cringe as it was oddly painful with her dry throat. To her surprised the old man chuckled and poured her a glass of water from the large pitch that had been beside her bed the entire time. She took the glass and muttered her thanks even as her pale cheeks flushed slightly.

"Now, may I ask why you appeared outside my village covered in blood? Also, please be honest with me as a great many things depends on it." asked the Sandaime Hokage even as he turned to stare out the lone window in her room.

"I... I didn't really plan to come here. I was running and not really giving much thought to where I was going and before I realized it, I was outside your village." Yugito answered while hoping he would let the blood part of his question slide. He would not.

"And the blood? To be honest that is what worries me the most as very little of it was yours." he asked, never once sounding anything other than calm and pleasant. It was almost as it he already knew everything but was merely confirming it with her.

"I... was in a battle." she whispered while hoping to end it there. When the Hokage turned towards her and raised a single eyebrow she sighed and continued. "I am originally from Kumo, as you already know, and after a slight... difference of opinion, I began fighting against the Raikage, his bodyguards, and one other person. I was able to kill the bodyguards and at least slightly wound the two others before fleeing. I... I never realized where I was going until I saw Konoha. By then my body was already shutting down and I knew I'd be unable to make it to any of the neighboring villages."

"And what, if I may ask, was the... difference of opinion about?"

"A man, the other man I fought against, appeared in my village and I began following him around, something about him just seemed off. After a little while the man met up with the Raikage's bodyguards. I followed him and the bodyguards back outside the village where they met the Raikage himself. The man said he was from an organization and gave the Raikage an ultimatum, hand me over when the time came or die. The Raikage just laughed and said something about me being a bitch and that they could have me whenever they wanted me. I heard this and became enraged. We fought for a long time before I was forced to flee."

"Did the man happen to say what organization he was from?" inquired the Hokage while Yugito nodded slowly, trying to identify the tone the man was using to see if it would mean trouble for her or not.

"The Akatsuki." she replied only to watch as the elderly man became lost in thought. It was a little while longer before the man turned towards her completely and asked.

"Have you any idea why they would want you?"

"I can only think of one reason." she whispered. "Because I'm a Jinchuuriki."

The elderly Hokage merely sighed heavily and closed his eyes. It was obvious that he was greatly upset or even saddened about her answer but for the life of her, Yugito couldn't figure out why. When the man opened his tired eyes, his look became one of sorrow as he sat down heavily in a chair beside her bed. She watched him struggle to control his emotions before finally he used the sleeve of his robe to wipe away a single tear.

"W-What will you do now? It is obvious that you will not be returning to Kumo and I am under no obligation to inform them of your presence here. I will not even ask you to leave if you give me your word that you will not harm anyone in his village." he said while Yugito's look of shock only increased that much more when he said that she could stay if she wished.

"B-But I'm..." she stuttered before the old man smiled kindly and interrupted her.

"Nii Yugito. Jounin of Kumo and known as the 'Ikiryou' for your abilities in stealth and tracking but also because of Nibi's ability to call upon and control the dead. You became a Genin at the age of five, a Chuunin at the age of seven, and a Jounin at the age of fourteen; you probably could have become one sooner but for reasons all their own your council and Raikage never allowed you. You have never failed to complete a mission but what's more important is that you have never allowed a teammate to be killed."

"A-All this time?" she whispered only to have the older man chuckle happily and exhale a cloud of smoke.

"I wouldn't be much of a Hokage if I allowed an 'enemy' shinobi to rest in my hospital without learning all I could about her, now would I?" he teased while the young Jounin blushed but was forced to agree with him. His jovial smile slipped for a moment before he sighed. "Yugito, I realize that you have no reason to trust me or anyone after what has happened to you but I'd like for you to stay in Konoha."

Yugito's eyes widened and try as she might the white haired beauty couldn't get her voice to work even after her mouth opened and closed several times. She had honestly expected to be killed as soon as she woke up and here she was lying in a hospital bed with the Hokage _asking_ her to _join_their village. She knew her life in Kumo was over as even if they would take her back, Yugito would never rejoin them after what they did to her. The betrayal cut her far deeper than most would realize.

Despite the realization that her past in Kumo was exactly that, the past, Yugito still found it hard to believe that someone would not only allow her to stay in their village and become a shinobi but would actually _ask_herto stay. It was the closest she had ever come to being excepted anywhere and even with the years of training in keeping her emotions locked away, Yugito felt her eyes begin to tear up.

"I-I would be honored. Th-Thank you." she replied, her voice thick with the emotions she was trying to deny and keep locked deep inside.

"Than welcome to Konohagakure no Sato, Nii Yugito. As of this moment it is with great pride that I grant you the rank of Jounin. However..." the Hokage said and immediately the young woman's face fell and she waited for the list of demands to start. She should have known better than to believe she would be allowed to stay without something in return. "However, as a show of loyalty, I would like for you to become a sensei to one of the teams graduating our academy. Many may have a problem with your presence and rank so teaching and keeping a team alive may show them that you are serious about wanting to be here."

"Y-You want to put me in charge of a team of Genin!" she nearly shouted, her face showing the horror she felt.

"If you don't mind." replied the Hokage with another light chuckle. He knew all to well what most Jounin thought of becoming a sensei, as he felt it himself when he was asked. It was important, of course, but to most it was like a slap in the face.

"C-Can't you just ask me to kill someone? I... I'm not good with people, and won't you putting me in charge of a Genin team after just instating me get you in trouble?" she asked, almost pleading with him to find a different way for her to show her loyalty.

"Yugito, I have one other reason for asking this of you." the Hokage said while suddenly sounding as if the topic alone was breaking his heart. When he noticed that he had her undivided attention, he continued. "Normally I would ask you to complete a mission but... there is a student that will be placed under your care that I believe needs you far more than you could ever imagine."

"H-How so?"

"He is a Jinchuuriki." whispered the Hokage as a pained look flashed over his eyes before they closed. Once again he struggled to control his emotions while Yugito simply stared back at him in disbelief.

As there were nine Bijuu, Yugito always knew that the odds of their being another person that shared her pain were pretty high. However, the odds of her ever meeting one of those people were so low that even a fool would never harbor any hope of meeting one. Yugito had been worse than a fool in many ways as she had always, deep down in her heart, longed to meet another. A person who would understand what it's like to be alone, to be looked at as if they were a monster. Just someone to share her pain with.

"Uzumaki Naruto was used by our Yondaime Hokage to seal away the Kyuubi no Youko. He was supposed to be seen as our greatest hero, that was the Yondaime's dieing wish, but instead he was seen as the Kyuubi itself and treated v-very badly." explained the Hokage and Yugito's look softened greatly when she heard the pain in the elderly man's voice. It was painfully obvious that he did not like the way the boy had been treated. "H-He was beaten and starved by every orphanage in this village before they finally threw him out onto the streets. This was all before he even turned four years old. His birthday is seen as a celebration for the Yondaime's defeat of the Kyuubi but also a day where Naruto is often attack and beaten by shinobi and villagers alike.

"When Naruto turned six ANBU reported that a mob had formed and immediately I went searching for him. W-When I arrived they had him trapped and were severely beating him. T-The council blocked me at every turn when it came to helping him but after that I didn't care. I threatened to leave the village if they didn't agree and after that I was allowed to get Naruto an apartment and a small allowance. He was safe inside his apartment but the abuse still continued as no one would sell him anything to eat or wear except a single ramen stand that is run by a man and his musume. Aside from myself and his sensei in the academy, Naruto is completely alone as the parents tell their children that Naruto is evil and a monster. U-Until last night Naruto had no idea why he was hated. It was then that someone finally told him the truth about being a Jinchuuriki. I-I had thought that by making it a crime to speak of what truly happened to the Kyuubi, Naruto might be able to have even the smallest chance at a normal life. I-I fear I was wrong."

As strong as she believed she was, Yugito was reduced to tears only halfway through the mans story. Her life had been bad but she had never been beaten simply because she had always had some level of control over Nibi's power. It was obvious that the Kyuubi's power was far too much for the young Jinchuuriki to handle and so others were free to beat him without fear. It was then that she realized that as much as she longed for someone to understand her pain, even she couldn't fully grasp what the young boy's life had been like.

Even as she tried to force herself to stop crying, Yugito also realized that she may never get this chance again. Not only did the Hokage seem to want her in his village, but there was someone there that needed her so badly that she knew she would never be able to turn down the offer. There was also the fact that mentoring the Jinchuuriki of Kyuubi in how to fully use the demon's power was a thrilling idea in and of itself. She knew her power inside and out and Nibi was nowhere near as powerful as Kyuubi, so if the child, Naruto, could learn to wield that power... The very idea sent shivers up Yugito's spine.

"I-I'll do it so long as you give me your word that this Naruto boy will be on my team. I don't care who you pair him with but I will not teach anyone anything unless he is on my team. No one in this village will understand him like I do." Yugito stated as firmly as she possible could, considering the fact that she was still a bit chocked up from the Hokage's story about Naruto's life.

"I will contact the other would-be sensei's and Iruka so that the teams can be redone. No matter what, you have my word that Uzumaki Naruto will be under you care, even if we have to make him your apprentice." vowed the Hokage while Yugito nodded curtly. "Tomorrow those that graduated will be finding out who is on their team and you and the other senseis will meet with them. Normally a sensei will administer yet another test to see if the team can function correctly, but also to see if their abilities are... up to snuff so to speak. Usually those that fail their sensei's test are sent back to the academy, but it's entirely up to you whether or not you want to keep them as your team."

"Thank you." she whispered absently. Her mind already trying to wrap itself around the idea that not only was she about to become a sensei to three Genin, but also that one of her pupils was a Jinchuuriki himself. And that of Kyuubi no less!

"I will send some cloths for you as soon as I am able. What you were wearing wasn't in the best of condition and it's probably best if you didn't dress like a Kumo-nin. Until then, please rest."

Yugito nodded but hadn't exactly listened to what the old man had said to her. The Sandaime Hokage knew this but didn't really mind. He had, after all, given her a lot to think about so he just patted her gently on the arm as he stood before disappearing in a swirl of leaves. As he left the Sandaime Hokage wondered if finally Naruto's life was beginning to change for the better. He knew all to well how much of a difference having a sensei who understands and cares can make.

She didn't exactly realize how much time had passed but to the outside world Yugito had been lying in her bed with her thoughts racing for close to two hours. She probably would have stayed longer but a nurse entered her room and set an outfit at the foot of her bed. The look the woman gave her was one mixed with confusion and accusation. Apparently even the non-shinobi members of the village knew of her past in Kumo and hated her for it, or at least looked at her with distrust.

When the nurse left her alone again, Yugito slowly got to her feet and stretched. Despite the fact that when she had woken up her body felt as though it had been smashed to pieces, Yugito now felt perfectly fine, if a little tired. She had always been quick to heal thanks to Nibi's presence and if for only that reason, Yugito felt grateful for the demon. To most it wouldn't have been a worth while trade off but Yugito felt that if it was going to be sealed inside of her anyway, something other than power should be given. It was that healing ability that had allowed her to train far past normal human limits only to rest for a shot time and do it again. As she slowly began looking over the clothing that was brought to her, Yugito wondered if Naruto had been given that same healing ability. She truly hoped he had as without it his life, their beatings, would have left far more than mental scars.

As she tied her new hitai-ate around her forehead, Yugito's heart began pounding in her chest and her hands began to shake. The knowledge that it was Konoha's insignia etched into the metal and not Kumo's was painfully obvious to her... and yet she found herself also feeling immensely excited about being a part of Konoha. Yugito then moved to the tall, fully body mirror that was hanging on the outside of the bathroom door to look herself over.

The clothing she was given was mostly standard issue for a Jounin. A pair of slightly baggy black pants, a pair of black fingerless gloves, and the Jounin flank jacket. Her shirt, however, was nothing more than a black tanktop but she still liked the way it looked on her. Tossing the flank jacket on to her bed, Yugito grabbed the dark cloth-like tape she had also been given and began tapping the bottoms of her pants to her legs before sliding on the pair of shinobiesque sandals she had been given. It was only small differences between her old uniform and the one she was wearing now but as she moved to look at herself in the mirror once more, they seemed to jump out at her as if she were wearing a bright green, full body training suit. When she finally pulled on the flack jacket, Yugito looked herself over even as her bottom lip was trapped between her teeth.

"It... It's different" she mused softly as she turned around and looked over her shoulder so that she could see what she looked like from the back. "I'll have to find something to tie my hair back with but for the most part I like it. Now, lets go see what my new village looks like. Perhaps I'll run into that boy, Naruto I think his name was."

As she opened the door to her room and exited, Yugito didn't even pay any heed to the fact that she had no idea what Naruto looked like. She also didn't think it would matter. After years of looking at herself in mirrors, Yugito knew she would have been able to spot someone with her own pain from miles away. That and the fact that if the villagers hated him as much as the Hokage had led her to believe, their looks would be all the help she would need.

After leaving the hospital without incident, Yugito was forced to shield her eyes from the bright sun overhead. When she was able to focus she realized how far away from Kumo she truly was. Absolutely nothing looked the same, not the people, not the buildings, nothing. Kumo was not a small place and yet Konoha seemed many times larger than her old village and many times busier. She had yet to move away from the front of the hospital and already people were rushing past her. It was then that she realized that her new life in Konoha was going to take some getting use to.

Still, Yugito found, the people seemed friendly as more than once someone passing her would offer a small smile. _Will they continue to smile when they learn what I am? _She thought sadly as she finally forced herself away from the hospital. Those around her didn't even bat an eye when she suddenly seemed to disappear.

As she raced across buildings and trees alike, Yugito found that her movements were still slightly sluggish. It didn't really bother her too much because she was within her new village after all but even in Kumo she had an odd habit of sneaking around but that most stemmed from her dislike of the cold looks she was given by the villagers.

It was nearly nightfall when Yugito finally believed that she had at least some small understanding about how Konoha was set up. Some of the buildings looked so similar that she was certain that she would forget which was which but some, like the administrative building, she knew she would be able to find if need be. Despite the fact that she had mostly been trying to gain a basic layout for Konoha, Yugito was still slightly disappointed that she had yet to run into anyone she believed could be the Jinchuuriki of Kyuubi.

It wasn't until she began looking over the training grounds for her own training that she found a young boy who she believed could be the one she had been looking for. Surprisingly, however, there wasn't just one boy present in the clearing, there were fifty. Fifty copies of the exact same blond haired, blue eyed boy. Fifty copies of the boy's horrible orange outfit. Sticking to the shadows, Yugito watched as the majority of the copies surrounded a single one before attacking. The one being attacked fought back bravely but the numbers were to great and it was painfully obvious that the boy's taijutsu was in serious need of attention. Still, she was greatly impressed that no matter how hard the boy was hit or how hard he was thrown to the ground, he regained his feet and continued fighting. The fire burning in the boy's eyes reminded her of her own the few times she had seen her reflection in water during her long training regimes.

"I see you were able to find our darkest secret without any prompting."

Yugito blood ran cold as she turned only to find the elderly Hokage standing behind her, looking at the boy from over her crouched form. Once again his eyes displayed the emotions he longed to show and if anything it only seemed to solidify to Yugito just how much he cared about the young boy. Truthfully, if it had been anyone other than the Hokage, Yugito would have been questioning her own skills in concealment and stealth. She hadn't even gotten the slightest hint that someone might have been watching her, let alone standing directly behind her.

"His dream..." started the Hokage before his words were broken by a soft almost pained laugh. "His dream is to become the greatest Hokage our village has ever known. He wishes to gain the acknowledgment of every villager and shinobi if only to prove his own existence. You will find that there are two Narutos. One, the public Naruto, is a happy-go-lucky fool who is always smiling and looking for the best in every situation. The second is the true Naruto, the one he keeps locked deep inside himself until he thinks no one is looking. That is a Naruto only three people have ever seen, yourself included. Both are stubborn, hardworking, and will never back down from a challenge regardless of the odds. Still I wish that the true Naruto were the one he displayed most. The empty smiles are beginning to become too much for me."

"Why does he feel the need to act like a fool?" Yugito asked while turning back to the blond boy and watched as he wiped a steam of blood from his cheek. It was then that she noticed the three whisker marks that donned each cheek of the boy and his clones.

"Regardless of how most people see him, Naruto is by no means a fool. At a young age he learned the joy of having his peers laugh at one of his pranks or jokes and for the first time it was as if he had been accepted by them. Don't get me wrong, the boy is mischievous beyond belief but over time people simply began labeling him as a dunce. The people's looks were cold and unforgiving enough without them fearing him so he acts like a fool so that, to some extent, they don't hate him as much as they could. His sensei in the academy was the first to notice this and when he brought it to my attention we began keeping a closer watch on his progress within his academy as well as the training we knew he was doing outside. While he is by himself, like now, the boy is easily one of the best in his year, but when he returns to the classroom he plays the fool so that the others don't have more reason to hate him. He has potential, more so than I have ever seen, but he fears the reaction of the shinobi and villagers if they were to see the 'demon' excelling."

"D-Does he not have a family?" Yugito whispered sadly. Despite having lived a life much like the young man's, she found it incredibly hard not to pity the boy.

"I will tell you something but it must never be told to Naruto." the Hokage stated and when Yugito opened her mouth to say something, he continued. "I-I realize that it may be cruel but there are reasons for me doing this and believe me, when the time is right, he will learn the truth."

"I swear to you that whatever you tell me will never be uttered from my mouth."

"Naruto is truly alone but at one time he did have parents who loved him. Loved him more than I could ever express. Sadly, his kaa-san died mere moments after giving birth to him and his tou-san died not long after. Uzumaki Kushina was his kaa-san's name and I give thanks that she was at least able to hold him once before she passed. She was a very kind woman and beautiful beyond measure. His tou-san's name was Namikaze Minato, our Yondaime Hokage." the Sandaime Hokage whispered even as he was forced to close his eyes or risk losing control over his emotions at the sight of the young man training not far off.

"H-He is treated like a demon and yet he is the musuko of your greatest hero?!" Yugito hissed angrily while inside she was disgusted and shocked at the information she had just learned. How could the village celebrate the man's name and sacrifice while beating his own child who had given up far more than his life to keep them safe from the beast.

"As I said, he is this village's darkest secret. I gave serious thought to leaving Konoha at that time but I realized that Naruto would need me, I just wish I had been able to do more for him. If I had thought it would work I would have sealed the best inside myself just so that Naruto could grow up in a home where his is loved and wanted. W-When I see him smiling that cold and empty smile of his it breaks my heart to know that he may never gain the acknowledgment he works so hard to gain. To know that his dream of becoming Hokage may never come true simply because the village fears him and what is sealed inside him. I-I hate myself for not stopping the sealing even if it meant my village was destroyed. I hate looking out over the village and thinking that maybe it would have been best for the Kyuubi to put an end to us. Konoha has fallen very far in my eyes over one single child and at times I honestly wish for something to happen just to prove to them that Naruto was nothing more than a child who had been given a burden, a burden they made even heavier by their words and looks."

The more he spoke the less control he seemed to have over his emotions and soon the older shinobi was unable to keep his own tears in check. It was painfully obvious that the Hokage didn't like feeling this way but it was just as obvious that he had been completely honest with her. Yugito looked back for a second and saw that even as tears rolled down his cheeks, the elderly man was smiling slightly at the young man as he struggled against the multiple attacks of the clones.

"Naruto initially failed the graduation exam." the Hokage whispered while now sounding immeasurable proud of Naruto despite what he had said. "That boy, just yesterday, was incapably or making a single clone. The Bunshin no Jutsu happened to be the final test for the academy and at the time Naruto could only create one single deformed _thing _that resembled him slightly."

"B-But..." Yugito stuttered as she and the Hokage had both been watching the boy fight against a small army of clones the entire time. There was obviously the fact that the clones he was fighting against were physically real as the punches to his face drew blood just as real as any other.

"After he failed, a man named Mizuki who had been working under Umino Iruka, Naruto's sensei, as a second sensei to the class confronted him with a 'secret test'. Mizuki told Naruto that if he stole a certain scroll from me and was able to learn one technique from it, he would be able to graduate." the Hokage explained even as a slight blush spread out across his cheeks. "N-Naruto was able to break in and... err... incapacitate me, please don't ask me how, and steal the scroll. When he reached the area Mizuki had told him about, he read the first technique and began training. When Iruka found him it became obvious that Naruto had been lied to and that is when Mizuki appeared and told Naruto the truth of what he was. The fear in his eyes was unimaginable. F-For a moment Naruto believed that everything the villagers had said to him was true, that he truly was a demon who had killed so many people. While Iruka and Mizuki spoke, they didn't realize that Naruto was standing nearby and heard Iruka as he acknowledged Naruto. That brat saved Iruka from a certain death at the hands of Mizuki by performing the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu to an extent that even in my youth I never would have been able to duplicate."

"H-How many did he create? I arrived just after he had nearly fifty and he didn't even look winded." she asked while feeling excited for Naruto and for herself. Naruto because she was happy that he had been able to succeed at something and herself simply because he was about to become her pupil.

"I'd guess nearly one thousand but I didn't even bother counting." he answered only to have the newest Konoha Jounin stare back at him in disbelief. "I believe that his heightened emotional state may have allowed him to tap into a small portion of Kyuubi's chakra. Naruto has amazing amounts of stamina and chakra but even his alone shouldn't have been able to accomplish such a feat, not with his level of chakra control."

"THAT is why I'm here." Yugito whispered and despite the fact that she was speaking more to herself, the Hokage still heard her and shot her a questioning look. "When I was running I simply let my instincts take over. I think that Nibi sensed Naruto use a small portion of Kyuubi's chakra and guided me here. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the other Bijuu had sensed it. If I understand it correctly, Kyuubi's chakra is not something most would ever forget."

"No... it is not." the Hokage agreed with a slight shiver. "If I were asked to describe it in one word it would be terror. Pure, overwhelming terror. I have been in many battles and I have felt many different kinds of killing intent but against that beast... I felt as if I were a helpless child. My instincts told me to run but my body refused to move. At times I still have nightmares about that night and wake up in a cold sweat."

"From what I've been told of Kumo's battle with Nibi, it was much the same. A few of our shinobi on the front line that survived the conflict returned completely crazed."

"To be honest I find myself worrying about him." the Sandaime whispered softly as he gently rested his hand on the shoulder of the Jinchuuriki. "I worry that such chakra will taint him. He is a wonderful child if you look past his jokes and pranks. He would help a friend at the cost of his life without a moments' hesitation... If he had a friend I mean. Between Iruka and I, I fear he has little reason to be happy. I sometimes believe that if I asked, that boy would end his own life if he believed it would make me happy. He is so kind, so loyal, and so willing to give up everything to protect his precious people, and yet most will never allow themselves to see past what they believe his is. A demon. The Kyuubi reborn."

"Hokage-sama, please don't worry about Naruto becoming tainted by Kyuubi's chakra. I give you my word that I will train him to the best of my abilities to use the power given to him without removing his innocence." Yugito vowed.

"I know you will, my child." he replied with a kind smile and a gentle pat on the shoulder his hand was one. "From my understanding, you have an incredibly high level of control over Nibi's chakra, full materialization I believe? I would love to witness it for myself."

"I would like to meet with Naruto before I show you but after, all you have to do is ask. To be honest I am proud of what I am." she stated while to the Hokage it sounded as if she were merely trying to convince herself of this fact. "I have been given great power and I was able to protect an entire village. Regardless of what they did or said to me, regardless of how it hurts at times, I am and will always be a Jinchuuriki."

"You do not have to convince me, my child." he whispered. "In my eyes you and Naruto are the heroes you were meant to be. Without your sacrifice, many innocent people would have been killed and even if they seem ungrateful of what you did for them, you are still a hero. You were not created out of greed for power but out of a need to protect. In my life it will never matter what I do, you and Naruto will always surpass me in courage, bravery, and strength."

For once in her life Yugito felt herself blushing terribly under the praise of the kind old man who seemed eternally grateful for her sacrifice and presence. If being able to teach and meet another Jinchuuriki wasn't enough, Yugito finally felt like she was where she was meant to be. A place where she was needed and wanted. She had finally found her home hidden away among the leaves of Hi no Sato.

"What can you tell me about his abilities? His taijutsu needs a lot of work but he seems more than willing to practice but I've yet to see him do anything aside from it." she asked once her attention was returned to the blond who had just destroyed the final clone and collapsed to the ground as he gasped for air. He was bleeding from many different points on his body and this told Yugito and the Hokage that the clones had not been holding back in the slightest.

"His taijutsu has suffered greatly because no one is willing to sit down and teach him properly or spar with him. Iruka tried his hardest to always be there for him but at times it is impossible and I believe Naruto knows this. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the first time Naruto has ever sparred against 'another' person. As I said a moment ago, his stamina is monstrous as are his chakra reserves so there is actually very little Naruto couldn't accomplish if he worked hard enough. His control over his chakra, however, leaves him only being able to perform high level jutsus. The reason he has no potential in genjutsu and his Bunshins are deformed is because he has dismal control and uses far too much chakra in every jutsu. Oddly enough when he learned the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, Naruto was actually helping himself far more than he realized." explained the Hokage and when Yugito looked back at him with an expression that told him she didn't understand, he continued. "A shadow clone is far more than just a clone. As you have no doubt realized by now, they are physically real. They are actually able to bleed and cause harm to opponents but usually one solid strike will destroy one. That, however, is nothing compared to what else they can do."

"Go on." Yugito said excitedly. She had to hand it to the man, he was a master at creating suspense; she honestly didn't know what she would do if the Hokage didn't finish telling her about the amazing clones Naruto was able to create.

"The easiest way to explain it is to think of each clone as it's own person. If Naruto were to create a single clone, his chakra would be divided between them. Create one thousand clones and it is divided evenly between them. Uzumaki Naruto is probably the only person who can create so many clones and still have chakra to spare. Most Jounin ranked shinobi would be able to create one or two at a time, any more and they would die. Why am I telling you all this? Because of the implications of this ability of his. If I were to create a single clone and give it a scroll filled with facts I didn't know, when it was dispelled or destroyed, I would gain every ounce of knowledge it gained from the scroll as it I had sat down and read it myself. This makes the clones ideal for scouting and probing as it allows a team to gain information about an area without having to risk themselves to gain it. But that is far from all it can be used for."

"Just tell me already!" she demanded while sounding both annoyed and as if she were about to start crying. The old man chuckled quietly so not to give away their position to Naruto before he continued.

"Since a clone is considered to be it's own person, it could do two things at once or do one thing twice as fact. If I were to give Naruto a jutsu to learn and he were to create a single clone, he would be able to learn it in half the time. Create one thousand clones and it would be done in one/one thousandth of the time it would normally take. Since Naruto is able to create these clones at such an extreme scale, he could, in effect, complete years worth of training in a matter of days. While he cannot use them to train his body, Naruto _can _use them to train his chakra. Just as any information the clone gains is sent transfered to the original, so is any experience or increase in chakra control. If Naruto learned to tap into Kyuubi's chakra to create one thousand clones, he could have those clone train in chakra control for only one full day and in the end it would be like he had training for nearly three years. Use that same number of clones for one week would result in just over nineteen years of experience."

"P-Please forgive me for this but... Holy shit!" Yugito whispered while the Hokage struggled to keep his laughter at level Naruto wouldn't hear. To be honest he had much the same reaction later the same night Naruto had learned it when he realized what it could be used for in Naruto's hands. Yugito, he noted, seemed to realize that if Kyuubi had left him with an amazing potential, Kyuubi and Kage Bunshin no Jutsu together left him with something much more than mere potential.

"However, I don't think Naruto himself has realized this yet. He knows the bit about the clones memory becoming his own as he uses it to help with taijutsu, but I don't believe he knows anything about their potential to help him with chakra control. I believe I will leave you to tell him about them. Of course to better understand them, I will allow you to read the section on them that I'm sure Naruto merely glanced over." the Hokage said while enjoying Yugito's look of awe and disbelief greatly. "I sometimes wish the jutsu wasn't so dangerous as it's potential is amazing. Of course few could ever use it to the extent Naruto can, perhaps you might be able to with Nibi's help."

"I-I hope so..." Was all Yugito said in reply as the blond before them continued to work through a mock battle, fixing his stance where he needed to. She also noticed that every wound that Naruto had suffered during the spar... well the word 'beating' described what had happened much more accurately, had already healed. Not only did he heal fast but he healed far faster than even she did without calling upon Nibi's chakra. Even if she did call upon her demon's chakra, if Naruto did so as well she knew he would still heal far faster and she didn't begrudge him it in the slightest.

"Now, the actual reason I came to find you was to tell you that I was able to meet with Iruka and the other Jounin senseis. A few had their reservations about you being a shinobi at all, let alone in charge of a Genin team, but even they were forced to admit that placing Naruto under your care would be for the best. I'm sorry to say that a few of your fellow shinobi refuse to see you as anything more than a demon from Kumo, but they are in the minority and I believe they may yet change their views once they get to know you." he said and took note of the expressionless look on Yugito's face as she slowly nodded. He could see that she was upset that even the people of Konoha were seeing her as a demon but the knowledge that Naruto was under her care seemed to offset this.

"And who are the other two Genin on my team?"

"Hyuuga Hinata and Haruno Sakura." the Sandaime replied only to sigh when Yugito flinched horribly at the sound of Hinata's clan name.

"I-Is that really wise? T-To most people I will always be a Kumo-nin and to place a Hyuuga on my team would be...."

The Hokage cut her off by raising a single hand. "You _are_a shinobi of Konoha, regardless of where you were before coming here. Until you prove otherwise, you have my complete trust and I know you will be an excellent sensei to young Hinata."

"If you think it is for the best." Yugito replied but it was clear that she was still a little uneasy about the how Hinata and her clan would react to her being the young woman's sensei.

"There is one other reason for placing her on your team and it actually centers around Naruto, like so many other things seem to." he added but this time the corners of his lips were turning upward and his eyes shinned with suppressed laughter. "Despite the way Naruto is viewed by most of the village, young Hinata has developed quite the crush one the young man. Of course we are not in the business of placing people together simply because of crushes but for once it seemed to be for the best. Please forgive me for being blunt but after Kumo's failed kidnapping attempt when she was three years old, Hinata has suffered from a severe lack of confidence. Because of this she is treated poorly within her own clan and this only seems to make her self-worth shrink even more. She is an incredibly kind young woman who seems to have a rather impressive ability in creating healing salves. Her kind heart leads her to suffer in training as she fears that she will hurt her opponent, this only seems to lead most to believe that she is weak. I believe, I hope, that by placing her together with Naruto, perhaps she will begin to feel better about herself. Adding his clones to the mix and perhaps she will even begin to train without fear of harming her opponent."

"And the last one? Haruno Sakura?" Yugito asked and when Naruto began to leave, she assumed it was to go to wherever it was that he lived.

"I almost don't want to tell you about her." laughed the Hokage only to have Yugito look confused by this. "She is a perfectly lovely young woman and unbelievably smart but she does have a few... less than desirable qualities that most senseis wouldn't want. First is while she may be incredibly smart in terms of book smarts, she has very little in the way of practical application. Second is that while she has near perfect chakra control, it is only because she has very little chakra to begin with. The last, however, is by far the worst and yet is also most common among young girls her age...."

"A boy." sighed Yugito while the Hokage nodded sadly.

"The last member of the Uchiha Clan is in this years graduating class and like almost every other girl in their year, Sakura is obsessed with the boy. Hinata, it would seem, is the only girl in their class not under the boy's spell. Sakura and many of the other kunoichi have placed love and lust ahead of training and it is very apparent. She has the potential to be a wonderful medic-nin as well as a decent genjutsu user but she seems far more worried about winning over the Uchiha's heart than any type of shinobi training. Plus she is loud, stubborn, and is often overly confident of what little abilities she does have."

"I... I hate you." Yugito stated darkly as she narrowed her cat-like eyes at the Hokage but the man didn't seem even the slightest bit effected by it. If anything he only looked apologetic that his kunoichi were so... un-shinobi-like.

"I fear I should also tell you that Naruto has a crush on Sakura. Whether this is how he truly feels or is just another cover for him, I do not know, but if he refuses to drop his act than you'll have your work cut out for you."

"I _really _hate you." stated the Jinchuuriki but the Hokage laughed happily despite her words. To be honest Yugito had been preparing herself for the worst when it came to pupils but she had allowed a slight hope to creep in as well. Apparently everyone wanted to give her the hardest time possible. "So, not only do I have the Jinchuuriki of Kyuubi who is actually the musuko of the Yondaime Hokage and is hated by most of the village, but I have a Hyuuga who was kidnapped by Kumo-nins when she was young leaving her with a severe lack of confidence, and a girl who cares nothing about training in what separates us from civilians and spends most of her time mooning over a boy every girl her age seems to 'love'. Did I get that right?"

"You forgot the bit about Hinata having a crush on Naruto and about Naruto having a crush on Sakura who has a crush on another boy, but yeah. For the most part you were spot on."

"I really,_ really _hate you." she said but this time it came out as more of a whimper. Hearing this the Hokage just threw his head back and laughed happily, paying no mind to the pitiful look the young Jounin had on her face. She would definitely have her work cut out for her.

()()()()()()()

The following morning found Naruto lying in bed, staring blankly up at his bedroom ceiling. For the past month or so it had become increasingly difficult to lift himself out of his bed and face the cold stares of his own village. To get up and once again put on his mask of idiocy that he normally wore. He was becoming tired. Tired of living the lie that had just about become who he truly was even in his own mind. There were so many times when he was training that he wished that someone would stubble upon him and make it impossible for him to continue lying to everyone around him. Sometimes he wanted nothing more than to be able to just stop smiling.

As his right hand tightened around the cold metal of his hitai-ate, Naruto couldn't help but smile slightly at the memory of how he came to own the hitai-ate of his academy sensei. It was slightly battered and was by no means the prettiest one of the lot but Naruto would never trade it for anything in the world. It was the first physical proof that he had that he had been accepted by someone of Konoha. Nothing else meant so much to the young Genin and if anything, it only seemed to make him want to stop living his lie all the more.

While it was completely normal for a newly graduated Genin to worry about who their teammates and sensei would be or where their life would be going, Naruto seemed far more worried about how he would be seen by those people if they happened to learn the truth about what he was. That his own team would view him as a demon if they knew that he had been used to seal away the Kyuubi and that on occasion he was able to call upon the demon's power to heighten his own drastically.

When the thought about who his sensei might be Naruto wasn't really to picky. They could be male or female, they could specialize in any portion of shinobi's life, and all Naruto would ask is that he be treated the same as his teammates. To at least be given the chance to prove himself before being judged as a monster or an abomination. In terms of teammates, however, Naruto did have a few qualifications he would like to have met. The most important was that he not be placed on a team with Uchiha Sasuke. Plain and simple. He had a few others he wouldn't want to be with and a few he did but he honestly didn't know what he would do if he were placed on a team with the Uchiha.

Every time Naruto looked at him he wanted to scream or kick the boy in the face. His attitude, his life, and even his abilities all annoyed Naruto to no end. While most would say it was mere jealousy at the fact that the young man was considered a 'genius' and wanted by every girl within a few years of them, Naruto knew the truth and jealousy had little to do with it.

When their class turned seven years old the Uchiha clan had been reduced to a single member, Sasuke, and at the time Naruto had felt terribly sorry for the boy as he knew all to well the pain of loneliness. However, this pity turned to angry and resentment when he watched the young Uchiha become arrogant and spoiled by those around him. In the eyes of most of the village, Uchiha Sasuke could do no wrong and Sasuke knew this little fact all to well. He was given everything his heart desired and still he asked for more, like it was owed to him because of what had happened. Even as he watched this Naruto tried making friends with the boy simply because he never wanted anyone to feel the biting cold of being alone day after day, and yet the boy laughed at his offer of friendship. He acted like Naruto, no, everyone was unworthy of even looking at him, let alone becoming friends with him. While Naruto was forced to hide who he truly was, Sasuke enjoyed showing off his abilities and degrading other for failing to do the same. The boy was cold, arrogant, condescending, spiteful, and completely absorbed in gaining more power. He was everything Naruto wasn't and yet loved by everyone. Naruto would literally give someone he didn't even know everything he owned if make them happy and yet he was never able to escape his fate as the 'demon brat'.

Realizing that the line of thought was only going to make him angry, Naruto shifted his thoughts to the one person he truly hoped would be placed on his team. Someone that was everything Sasuke wasn't and also looked down on because of it. Hyuuga Hinata. Naruto didn't really know her very well but knew she had almost no confidence in herself or her abilities. She was the heiress to Konoha's most respected clan and yet she was very kind and gentle. So gentle, in fact, that she was near the bottom of their class in all practical areas simply because she didn't want to use any of what she knew against another person, even an arrogant jerk like Uchiha Sasuke. For a shinobi she was very strange and the fact that she blushed terribly when people spoke to her only seemed to solidify this thought in the minds of many. Naruto, however, was even able to make her faint just by saying 'hello' to her or smiling in her direction. He didn't really know why she was so timid and shy but Naruto honestly felt that it made her a better person than most anyone, although it did make her a less than average shinobi. Naruto wasn't certain as he had never really been able to speak to her before someone from her clan would come and spirit her away or she would faint simply be being so close to him, but he often wondered what was truly going on in the young woman's mind. Perhaps she wore a mask as well.

It was with a heavy sigh that Naruto lifted himself out of his bed and began shuffling about his apartment, completing his usual morning rituals. A very light workout to wake himself up was done before he moved into the bathroom to shower and do everything else that he needed to do. After this was finished he dressed himself in his usual, and hated, orange outfit before sitting down to breakfast.

Like just about everyone else in the village, Naruto despised his clothing and wanted nothing more than to burn it and would do so happily if he was able. Sadly, no one in the entire village would sell him anything except for one store that would only sell him the same orange outfit but in different sizes. It didn't matter that he had more than enough money, it was as if he carried a plague and no one would risk catching it by taking his money. The only reason he was able to eat was because of the nice people at his favorite ramen stand. They would sell him ramen when he wanted it but the owner's musume, Ayame, would also do a bit of shopping for him just so that he could have something more than ramen every day. This helped a lot but it still seemed that ramen was a major portion of what he ate on any given day. Ayame offered to do his clothing shopping for him but Naruto always turned her down. Food was one thing but if someone saw him wearing what Ayame had bought, it would only cause unneeded problems for the small family that had always been so kind to him.

Finally, just as Naruto was about to leave his apartment and start towards the academy, he realized that he hadn't tied his hitai-ate to his forehead but instead he put back on his goggles that had become so familiar to him. Laughing lightly at himself, Naruto pulled the offending item off of him and stared at it in his hands before setting it on the table and grabbing his hitai-ate. It wasn't until it was tied tightly around his forehead that Naruto opened his door and left his apartment. His first few steps away from his door were on very unsteady legs; his knees nearly buckled after only the third step. Naruto then stood very still and took a few deep breaths.

_I wonder if anyone else is as nervous about this as I am? _Naruto thought to himself as he lifted his hands and saw that they were both shaking terribly. _Feeling both so nervous that I want to throw up and so excited that I think I'll explode does not make for a good combination. This is my first step in becoming the greatest Hokage of all time and yet... and yet I wonder if my dream isn't truly beyond my reach. When I learned of the Kyuubi it was like putting a face to the reason why I am so hated by everyone. It was also when I realized that there is little to nothing I can do to change their minds as I am always going to have the beast sealed within me. No family, no friends, and only four people that ever look at me with something other than disgust and disdain. Can someone like that really become Hokage? Can I really show those that hate me that I am Uzumaki Naruto, and not the demon that attacked this village twelve years ago?_

Closing his eyes Naruto clenched his fists tightly and sent out a prayer to anyone listening to allow his dreams to come true. To make the seemingly impossible task of becoming Hokage become reality. Once his eye were open again, Naruto sighed heavily before forcing his legs to begin moving again. Nothing he wanted in life would ever come true if he spent his life standing still praying for it. He needed to work for his dreams and Naruto was more than willing to do just that. He remembered Iruka talking about 'baby steps' and until that very moment he had never really understood what the man had meant. _Becoming Genin is the first step I need to take. It truly is impossible to become Hokage over night but it will happen if I work hard enough and do everything that needs to be done._

The walk to the academy was no different from the many other times he had walked there before. He was completely alone while others walked past him with their friends and possibly even their family. Those that happened to see him glared at him as if he had been about to rip off their skin the second their backs were turned. He hated those eyes. He hated being looked at as if he were a monster when all he had ever done was pull a few... a few thousand pranks. If he had truly been a monster or the Kyuubi like they seem to believe, Naruto knew he never would have allowed them to look at him or talk about him the way they did. Naruto snorted in dark humor while thinking that it was best for all of them that he wasn't the Kyuubi or else they would probably all be dead. If they truly believed that he was the demon than why risk retaliation by treating him the way they did? Surely they saw that the way they treated him was just begging for the demon to pay them back, right? But, Uzumaki Naruto was no monster and certainly wasn't the Kyuubi. He was a newly graduated Genin of Konoha and he was quite proud of that fact.

Naruto had been lost in thought most of the way to the academy that he never noticed that something was following him until someone sneezed. Naruto laughed quietly when he turned to see a rather large 'rock' following him. Of course since the rock was square and had eye-holes he figured there might be more to the 'rock' than most would think.

"You might as well come out." sighed Naruto only to have the box glow golden before exploding.

While normally he would have been impressed when the three children jumped out, the fact that they were chocking on their own explosion kind of took that away. Naruto looked at them as they tried to cough the smoke from there lungs and realized that every one of them was wearing a pair of goggles much like he had been when he first met Konohamaru, who was one of the three struggling to breath.

"Less gunpowder next time Udon!" chided the only female group member while the boy with the runny nose nodded. Suddenly the three straightened up and the girl spun before dropping into a pose. "The one who possess the sex appeal of an adult, and the female shinobi from the senior group, Moegi!"

"The one who loves dividing numbers, Udon!" stated the runny nose kid as he formed a pose while facing the other way.

"This village's number one genius shinobi, Konohamaru!" shouted the finally boy as he stood between the two others.

"The three of us make the Konohamaru Corps!" they all shouted while Naruto looked torn between amusement and horror.

"Err... Can I help you?" he asked weakly. He remembered Konohamaru from the day before but had no idea that he and his friends would start following him around. Still, even if it made him late for the academy, Naruto was happy to have three more people that saw him as something other than a monster or a demon. Sadly he was also forced to admit that the three had no idea why exactly he was labeled as such by the rest of the village.

"Boss, will you play with us?" pleaded Konohamaru while the other two shot him a pleading look as well.

_T-That look isn't fair! _He shouted mentally as he looked down at the only female in the group and realized that her look was by far the most effective. Naruto absently wondered if even Sasuke could look at the three and remain unaffected.

"I can't right now." Naruto admitted only to have them drop their look and begin looking terribly upset. Sighing heavily Naruto tried to think of something to give them to do that would allow him to continue towards the academy but wouldn't upset them. Then it hit him. "If you want I can give you a mission?"

"Anything!"

"Steal the Hokage's hat. If you are caught tell him a little fox sent you." he ordered while the three kids nodded firmly before turning and running off. Only stopping when Konohamaru tripped over his scarf before knocking over the other two, making them fall face first into the ground. After a quick look to see if anyone had seen them fall, the three took off running again and were soon out of sight.

As soon as they were, Naruto turned and continued his journey towards the academy. He was forced to admit that while it was a slightly strange encounter, he couldn't very well say that the three hadn't been entertaining. He knew deep down that he wouldn't be too terribly upset if he was given a few more encounters with the young would be shinobi... It was then that a thought struck him with such force that actually forced him to stop walking.

"Err... Don't those three have class?" he asked himself before laughing guiltily while at the same time hoping that the Iruka never found out why the three were skipping. While the older Chuunin wasn't in charge of the young classes, he still felt that it was his duty as an instructor to see to it that everyone, regardless of age or standing, attended classes.

After deciding that there was little he could do after that fact, Naruto shrugged to himself and redirected his thoughts back towards the many possibilities when it came to who he could be placed on a team with. Since he knew that they would be placed in teams of three and given a sensei, Naruto at least felt that his odds of getting at least one person on his team that he approved of were rather high. After all, the only person he absolutely didn't want to be on a team with was Sasuke.

The rest of the young blond's trip to the academy went without incident, unless you counted the different villagers he passed hissing and muttering threats toward him as he passed. One of the things Naruto hated most about his situation was how much he catered to the villager's fears. He made himself in to a fool so that they didn't fear his strength, he did everything the same day in and day out just so that they didn't get nervous by him acting 'out of character'. Naruto shook his head and sighed quietly as he entered the academy and thought that if he ever showed himself without his happy-go-lucky smile, the villagers would probably think that the demon inside him had taken over.

_How am I ever supposed to prove to them that I'm worthy of the Hokage name if I'm not allowed to go one day without smiling? _He thought even as he forced a smile onto his face and entered the classroom of one of the very few people to ever acknowledge him.

What he found upon enter, however, wasn't Iruka's smiling face but the looks of confusion and accusation directed towards him by his classmates. A select few openly sneered at the battered hitai-ate he wore proudly across his forehead. Unfortunately he missed the look of utter delight that appeared on the face of a young Hyuuga girl before she hid her blushing face from view.

"Didn't you fail, dobe?" sneered the perpetually arrogant Uchiha Sasuke. If anything Naruto enjoyed their interaction for the simple fact that it allowed him to finally drop his fake smile as everyone knew about his feelings towards the raven haired 'prodigy'.

"This." Naruto stated while tapping the cold, hard metal with his finger. "Should tell you differently."

This simple yet effective sentence seemed to only anger the young Uchiha while some, like the lazy Nara heir, merely smiled before going back to whatever it was they had been doing. In the young Nara's case it was lazily staring out the window watching clouds pass while trying to ignore Yamanaka Ino's instance that she would definitely be on 'Sasuke-kun's team. His ability to tune out the loud and aggressive blonde always amazed Naruto and many others.

In his class there seemed to be only one girl not entranced by Uchiha Sasuke and that was Hyuuga Hinata. Out of every young kunoichi, she seemed to be the only one that didn't swoon every time the raven haired shinobi glared in her direction. Then again, Naruto wasn't even sure if Uchiha Sasuke could glare at the kind girl. The aura of compassion and kindness the young Hyuuga had around her at all times was something Naruto wasn't certain that even a bastard like Sasuke could overlook.

As per the unwritten rules of the class, Naruto's usual seat in the back of the room was left empty until he himself dropped heavily into it. Almost immediately he found himself staring at the back of the head of the person seated in front of him even as Iruka entered the room and began speaking them. At one point of another almost everyone had sat in front of him and without fail Naruto would always try and imagine how their lives would play out, or what they were like when with their families or friends. Hyuuga Hinata was the person sitting in front of him at that moment and for some strange reason the life he envisioned for her caused a true smile to grace his lips instead of the empty forced ones he found himself wearing in front of others.

"... Team 9: Haruno Sakura, Hyuuga Hinata, Uzumaki Naruto..."

As soon as these words were out of Iruka's mouth many thinks happened. Naruto, who had been resting his head in his hand, was so shocked that he slipped and slammed his forehead into the desk. He gave thanks for his hitai-ate. Sakura began screaming that it wasn't fair that her 'Sasuke-kun' wasn't on her team. Poor Hinata froze up once she realized that she would be spending so much time with Naruto that she could only stare wide eyed back at her sensei even as her face steadily turned an ever darker shade of red.

"Who's our sensei?" Naruto inquired, actually shocking Iruka a little. The older man must have assumed that the young blond would have a few, very loud, complaints about his team.

"If you had been listening earlier, Gaki(brat)." snapped Iruka playfully only to have Naruto smile cheekily back at him. "I told everyone that your team's sensei would be here shortly to collect you. In short, shorty, it's a surprise."

"Teme, don't make fun of the handicapped!" shouted Naruto as he leapt to his feet and shook his fist at his sensei. Most of the class merely rolled their eyes as they had long since become used to the all to common 'fights' between Iruka and Naruto.

"The only thing handicapped about you, is your mental status." countered the Chuunin with a mocking smile only to have Naruto try and fail to think up a comeback. When the would be Genin sat back down, Iruka smiled happily and moved one side of the sliding chalkboard to reveal a board filled with tally marks. As he placed yet another one under his name he looked back at his student and smiled. "I'm only down by thirty-four, Naruto. Lately your comebacks have been lacking."

"Yeah, yeah." muttered Naruto as he waved his hand dismissively back at him. "The only thing lacking in this room is your love life and the Uchiha's sense of modesty."

"Damn it." muttered Iruka as he turned and put two more tallies under Naruto's name. He was just about to turn back around to comment back when he noticed that a line of Jounin ranked shinobi were now standing in front of his desk. Many looking far less than amused than the rest of his class.

While Iruka blushed and nervously scratched the back of his head under the looks he was getting by his superiors, Naruto enjoyed the entire scene and proved this as he laughed loudly. There were actually a few others in the room that joined him as it was very rare to see their sensei so flustered.

"Don't worry Iruka, I'm sure your love life will pick up any day now." teased a strikingly beautiful woman. This woman had beautiful crimson eyes, ruby red lips, and long brown hair that look wild but still very attractive. She wore thick, white wrappings that covered the upper portion of her legs and her waist, torso, and shoulders while her metal mesh undershirt had one solid red sleeve that covered her right arm while her left was left bare aside from the white bandages she wore over her hand and forearm. Needless to say that all the young puberty ridden boys were staring at her with more than a little lust in their eyes; even a few of her fellow Jounin were sneaking glances at her out of the corner of their eyes.

Naruto, however, would admit that the woman was beautiful but he found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the equally attractive woman standing to her right. Naruto noticed that this woman also had alluring crimson eyes but her pupils were slitted like a cats. In fact, the aura that seemed to surround the woman was completely different from anyone Naruto had ever encountered before in Konoha. He knew he would have noticed the woman even if they had just passed each other on the street.

When the woman finally turned and met his gaze, Naruto found himself looking away for the first time in as long as he could remember. His eyes went large when he realized what had happened and for the life of him he couldn't explain it. Even the Hokage had never accomplished such a feat before unless he looked at the young blond with disappointment, only then did Naruto find it impossible to meet his gaze.

"Team 9, come with me." stated the very woman Naruto had been staring at and to be honest, he wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing to have this woman as his sensei.

As the three freshly graduated academy students stood to follow the woman as she turned and walked back out of the room without another word, Naruto noticed that Sakura was doing so reluctantly even as she muttered under her breath. Hinata seemed willing to follow behind the woman but she seemed incredibly nervous about something and was blushing terribly as she tapped her index fingers together. Naruto, for his part, tried to keep his face closed off but his mind raced as he struggled to find any explanation for why he had looked away. Most people would have simply shrugged it off but for him, it was something he wanted to know desperately.

Hinata, Naruto, and Sakura followed the woman in relative silence as she walked along the silent corridor and eventually out of the academy altogether. Even then the woman didn't stop nor did she speak to her newly formed team, she simply continued to lead them without a word until they entered a nearby training ground. Finally, as she moved to lean against a thick tree, the woman spoke.

"Aside from reading your files, I know next to nothing about any of you." she said calmly as she looked each of them over as they lined up in front of her. She doubted that any of them noticed but her eyes stayed on Naruto a bit longer than the other two. "However, I really don't care about your likes, dislikes, or what hobbies you may have. As of right now I want each of you to tell me why you wanted to become a shinobi. I want the true reason, not a reason you think I want to hear. Haruno, you start."

"Err..." Sakura started but she looked very uncomfortable, almost embarrassed. "I... I first started the academy because it seemed like everyone my age was joining. At the time I hadn't put any real thought into becoming a shinobi and saw the academy as a way to pass time. I know this will seem childish but I was helped by a kunoichi once and I still remember wishing to be like her. Since then, being anything other than a shinobi seemed impossible."

"Hyuuga?" Yugito asked without commenting on Sakura's reason. The pink haired Genin seemed slightly worried that her sensei found her reason ridiculous. With a resigning sigh, Sakura admitted that there was little she could do if that was the case.

"I-I... I am the h-heiress of my clan." whispered Hinata in a painfully shy tone. Seeing her sitting there almost trembling reminded Naruto of a frightened kitten. "I w-was not given a choice i-in the beginning as anything o-other than b-becoming a shinobi is completely un-unacceptable. I am not a very p-powerful shinobi... but I am doing my best. I... I want to become a shinobi so that I can p-protect the people closest to me, so that I can b-become a proud leader of my clan."

As soon as she was finished speaking, Hinata pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. That had easily been the most she had ever spoken in front of Naruto and she hated that it had made her seem so pathetic, or so she thought. What she didn't know, was that the other three in the group, even Naruto, were actually struggling not to suddenly hug the pearl-eyes Hyuuga. Like a frightened puppy or kitten that one just wants to pick up and hold, Hinata unknowingly gave off that same exact air.

"Uzumaki?" Yugito finally said once the urge to suddenly throw her arms around the terribly shy Hyuuga had past. The ex-Kumo-nin wanted Hinata to have more confidence in herself and her abilities but she couldn't stop herself from hoping that she never lost her adorable shyness.

"I'm going to be Hokage." Naruto answered simply. It was as blunt as a shovel to the face but... that was Naruto.

"And?" Yugito pressed.

"And you can't become Hokage unless you're a shinobi." Naruto added only to have Sakura and Yugito roll their eyes while Hinata hid her twitching lips behind her knees. The young Hyuuga knew that there was much more to the blond than most believed but she still couldn't help that the blunt, happy-go-lucky Naruto he showed the world had become very dear to her.

"I guess I should have expected that." she sighed, it may have been a trick of the light but she could have sworn that Naruto's forced smile had transformed into a smirk for a few seconds. "Now, the reason I didn't ask for a normal introduction was because I felt that I would better understand each of you if I learned your reasons for becoming a shinobi. For the most part, I believe I was correct in my assumption."

She paused then for a moment to narrow her crimson eyes at Naruto, who tried and failed to look completely innocent.

"I'll start paying more attention to your likes and dislikes as well as your hobbies after you pass my test and solidify your place as my team." she said calmly while inwardly she was very pleased with the nervous, almost fearful looks on faces of her would be team.

"W-What do you mean test?" Sakura asked only to have the corners of their sensei's lips turn upwards ever so slightly.

"Despite having passed the exam the academy gave you, each team will be given a second exam by their would be sensei. In the end, if I feel as though you are a waste of my time, you will be sent back to the academy for another year at the very least. If you prove yourselves to me, then you will officially become Genins of Konoha."

"So what's the test?" inquired Naruto who was currently thinking of places to hide his hitai-ate in the event he failed this woman's test. He wasn't expecting to fail but he wasn't about to hand over the most important item he owned in the event that did happen.

"My exam will be a passive one. For the next few days you will perform missions as if you were a newly formed Genin team, and if in the end you prove to me that you are serious about this, then you will become my team. If, however, you give me one single reason to believe that you are not serious about this, you will fail and I will make sure that your next sensei knows why you failed." Yugito explained, she seemed to be getting an almost perverse joy from tormenting the 'not really shinobi' shinobi of her team. Despite how she appeared, she wanted them to pass very badly. She wanted to teach the young blond but if he didn't have the mindset for their line of work, she wasn't going to bother.

"S-Sensei, could... could you t-tell us a little a-about yourself?" Hinata whispered while hoping to learn a little, at the very least a name, about their would be sensei. She worried for a moment if she had said something wrong when her sensei stared back at her and sighed heavily.

"Until you three become official members of this team the only piece of information about myself that I will share with you, is my name, which is Nii Yugito. You are to meet me in front of the administrative building at six o'clock tomorrow morning to collect our mission. I will warn you here and now so that there is no confusion later, if you are late by even a single moment, you will have no place on this team. Until then you are dismissed. Uzumaki, I'd like a word with you before you leave."

While Sakura and Hinata stood before making their way out of the training ground, Naruto stayed seated and muttered to himself about being singled out. He had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he had failed to notice the look a certain Hyuuga had sent him before finally allowing herself to leave his side. Despite her reluctance, Hinata knew better than to question an order from their sensei, she just didn't seem like the type that took being ignored very well.

"The reason I asked you to stay behind is that there is something about me that I feel you should be told, something the others would not understand. Not yet anyway." Yugito said before sighing gently and staring straight back into Naruto's cerulean eyes. "I know, just by the way you have reacted to my presence, that you have noticed that there is something different about me. Something almost familiar but at the same time completely foreign."

"S-So." Naruto stated, he had attempted to sound completely unaffected by this woman's words but his voice had caught and made it impossible.

"There is nothing wrong with feeling this way, Uzumaki, as it is not something you can control. It is the reason why I was asked by the Hokage to become a sensei to a group of Genin, to become _your _sensei to be more accurate. Because you are the Jinchuuriki of Kyuubi no Youko."

Naruto suddenly tensed as soon as she mentioned the part about him being a Jinchuuriki but it was his eyes that betrayed him the most. If he had spent the rest of his life explaining his reaction to her words, it would never come close to equaling how much fear and worry she found in one moment of looking into his eyes. She had heard the saying that one's eyes were a window into the soul but she had never put much thought into it until that moment. As skilled as he was at hiding behind his mask, his eyes betrayed him to anyone who bothered looking.

"I was asked by the Hokage, despite the fact that I only became a Jounin of this village yesterday, because I too am a Jinchuuriki." she stated, her look softened and she smiled ever-so-slightly when those treacherous eyes of his widened. In them she found untold amounts of pain and fear, as well as hope and longing. "I am the Jinchuuriki of Nibi no Nekomata and a part of my role as your sensei is to teach you how to control the power hidden inside you."

"I-I... Y-You..." whispered Naruto before a pained sob forced him to fall silent. The young Genin struggled to make it appear as though nothing was wrong, but it was impossible to mistake his tears for anything else.

"It is... okay." Yugito said awkwardly as she tentatively placed her hand on his shoulder in an attempt to sooth him. Her current position was completely foreign to her but she knew enough to know that she was supposed to do something to make the young man feel better, she just had no idea what that something was supposed to be. She very nearly allowed a sigh of relief to pass through her lips when she saw Naruto wipe his eyes roughly as he attempted to regain control over his emotions.

"S-Sorry." Naruto whispered, feeling ashamed at how he had reacted to the knowledge that the beautiful woman before him was also a Jinchuuriki.

"There is nothing to apologize for, Uzumaki. There are only a possible eight others in the world that could understand the pain of being a Jinchuuriki and I never allowed myself to hope that one day I would find another. When the Hokage first instated me as a Jounin of this village, it was under the condition that I become a sensei to a newly graduated group of shinobi. To be honest I was hesitant to accept his offer because I wasn't sure how I would be treated... That is until he told me that one of my would-be pupils was a Jinchuuriki. The idea of meeting another of my kind was in and of itself reason enough for me to accept his offer but to know that I would also be the one that would teach them how to harness their demon's power... I can't even begin to describe it that feeling."

As soon as she finished speaking she noticed Naruto's lips move slightly but his voice had failed him and nothing had been said. Yugito was about to ask him to repeat what he had been trying to say when the blond cleared his throat and whispered.

"For me it's like... gaining a family."

Before she could stop herself, she found herself nodding in agreement. Meeting Naruto had indeed been the closest she had ever felt to having a family and a part of her was glad to see that he felt the same about her. Yugito knew that Naruto's life had been many times worse than her own, but she too was an orphan and she too was a Jinchuuriki. She had been forced to live her life as those around her longed for her death just as Naruto had and so she was one of only a possible eight others that could understand even a part of what it was like to live as he had lived.

Not really knowing where to go from there, Yugito decided to make a few things clear. "I want to make sure you understand a few things before I dismiss you. First and foremost is that while I consider it an honor to be the one to teach you how to control Kyuubi's power, you will receive no special treatment from me. In fact I will often ask more of you in both missions and training because I expect more from you. If, in the event you fail to make it onto my team, I will _not_ teach you anything regardless of my feelings on the matter."

"B-But..." started Naruto before Yugito silenced him with a look. As he fell silent, Naruto could only hope and pray to whoever was out there that Iruka and the Hokage never found out the kind of power his new sensei seemed to have over him. If they did they would never allow him to live it down, or they would use it against him as often as Yugito allowed them to.

"Save your words, Uzumaki, as they will do you little good." she stated firmly, the corners of her lips curved upwards slightly when she saw him sigh and nod his head. "It would be ignorant beyond any scope of the word to teach you how to control the Kyuubi's power when you couldn't even become a Genin. Now then, there is only one last thing I wish to say before I dismiss you."

"And that would be?"

"When a person trying to become something they aren't, it is only a matter of time before who they truly are breaks through. A wolf in sheep's clothing will fool the sheep but it can't possibly stay that way forever. To get what it wants, what it needs to survive, it will have to reveal itself as a wolf. The wolf may enjoy the peace that being a sheep brings but it will always be a wolf and that peace will never last. A person is like the wolf. They can fool everyone but sooner or later they will have to become what they truly are. It is also foolish for someone to hide behind a mask and yet wish to be accepted for who they truly are. For how can anyone accept someone they have never truly seen?"

With that said, Yugito pushed herself away from the tree and began walking towards the entrance of the training ground, only pausing momentarily to try and gauge Naruto's reaction to her words. She was pleased to find him still sitting beneath the tree with a thoughtful look on his face. If anything his reaction only proved the Hokage's theory correct, Naruto truly longed to discard his sheep's clothing and begin his life as a wolf. If he hadn't, the young blond would have immediately brushed aside her comments and flashed her an empty smile.

Yugito crossed the small bridge leading out of the training ground and before her foot even collided with the soft dirt path, she disappeared. A few seconds later the form Kumo-nin found herself standing outside the office of the Sandaime Hokage. As if they had been expecting her, the two ANBU guards immediately move aside. Upon entering the office to find an elderly man struggling not to smile too widely back at her, Yugito vowed that she would have her revenge.

Suddenly a thought struck her.

After walking gracefully up to the Hokage's desk, Yugito placed her hands on the edge and leaned forward, lowering her face so that she was staring directly into a now slightly worried pair of eyes. With her own crimson eyes glowing slightly, the kunoichi whispered in a silky voice. "Perhaps now would be a good time to demonstrate for you my level of control over Nibi's chakra?"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2.

"You have your choice of walking dogs, sweeping the steps of the library, or painting a shed." listed the Hokage as Team Nine stood in front of him with varying degrees of shock and horror written across their face. Despite Iruka's warning the night before over ramen that missions wouldn't be anything like he had envisioned, Naruto had still held out a small amount of hope that he would be wrong. It would seem that Hinata and Sakura hadn't had any type of warning as to what their missions would be like as their expressions her easily the most extreme of the three. Yugito looked down at her team and honestly felt a little sorry for them... but every shinobi had to suffer through D-rank missions in the start of their careers. Some just had to suffer through them for longer periods of time than others, her own team had only went on three D-ranked missions before moving on to higher ranking missions.

"Y-You're joking, right?" asked Sakura, almost pleading for the elderly man to finally start laughing at them before giving them their real mission. After all, they were shinobi, granted that they were only newly graduated shinobi but shinobi none the less and certainly not _maids_!

"In the beginning every shinobi must perform D-rank missions, this is so that they can learn to work together with their new teammates while still performing a service to our village. Think what you will about them but these _are _missions and so they will be done at a level our customers have come to expect from my shinobi." explained the Sandaime Hokage, sounding as if he had given that speech far more often than he would have liked during his time as Hokage.

"We will walk the dogs." Yugito announce, believing that she had chosen the lesser of the three evils. While she herself didn't mind dogs in the slightest, they seemed very reluctant to come any where near her. She assumed that they could feel the presence of Nibi inside her and realized that it was by no means a normal cat.

After Yugito stepped forward and retrieved the scroll for their mission, she bowed to the Hokage before leading her team out of the room and soon out of the building all together. She said nothing as she continued to lead them further away from the administrative building before stopping suddenly. Only then did she speak.

"I will be honest with you." she began, pausing only for a moment to glare at the scroll in her hands as if it had grievously insulted her. "The Hokage was correct when he stated that these missions are an important part of your development, but despite this I would much rather use my own methods of instilling the importance of teamwork on the three of you."

"B-But the mission..." Sakura cried despite herself, she fell silent under her new sensei's look. She had hated their choice of missions but they were _still _missions, as much as she hated to admit it.

"The importance of this mission is so that you learn the importance of teamwork while also performing the task set before us by the client, correct?" Yugito asked, only continuing once she noticed that Sakura was nodding her head softly. "If this mission were completed and I taught you the importance of teamwork, do you believe that the Hokage cares about the methods used?"

"H-How w-would we complete t-the mission?" inquired Hinata, her voice barely audible to even those standing directly beside her.

"Uzumaki, read this."

Naruto fumbled with the scroll that his sensei had tossed him but with a stern look from that same woman when he turned his attention towards her and not the scroll, the blond quickly opened it and began to read.

"Ten clones should ensure that the task is completed swiftly." she stated calmly once Naruto had finished reading, effectively confusing everyone present.

That is until Naruto's face suddenly came alive as understanding washed over him. Even before this expression had completely faded, the young blond shinobi had formed a cross shaped seal before shouting. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

When as a small area around them became covered in a thick smoke, Sakura still found herself very close to mentioning Naruto's past results when it came to creating clones but the words died in her throat when ten exact copies of Naruto exited the white clouds. After a quick glance to her right, she felt slightly more at ease when she noticed that a certain young Hyuuga was easily as shocked as she was, although there was something else hidden in her expression. Sakura couldn't quite put her finger on it but she got the impression that Hinata was very pleased with Naruto's achievement.

"As there are ten of you I expect this mission to be completed in less than an hour, any longer and there will be consequence." Yugito ordered, and things for the young pair of kunoichi only got worse when the small gathering of Narutos immediately dismissed themselves and went off to do what they were created to do.

Before this woman had appeared in their lives only the Sandaime Hokage and Iruka had been able to control the blond whom everyone had long since decided had limitless energy. The fact that this woman could do the same and after only one meeting... Sakura wasn't the only one that found herself regretting that she hadn't stuck behind and eavesdropped on the conversation the two had after their meeting.

"Now that the mission is taken care of, I want the three of you to go to the training ground we used yesterday for our meeting. I have something I wish to take care of before I join you." said the white haired Jounin before turning and disappearing from their sight.

"I'm not sure if I like her much." Sakura muttered, speaking more to herself than to her new teammates, as they began heading towards the training ground. Not allowing those next to her a second to respond, Sakura looked towards Naruto. "How is it that you failed the graduation exam because you couldn't create a single clone and yet just then you used some strange technique to create ten of them?"

"I failed the exam because at that time I _couldn't _create a clone. Thanks to Mizuki I was able to learn a different technique for creating clones."

"H-How w-will an i-illusion be able to com-complete o-our mission?" asked Hinata, finally asking the question Naruto had been hoping one of them would ask. He was very proud of his new technique and wanted to brag about it a little bit.

"Because the clones I just created are physically real. They can bleed and perform any jutsu just as I can, but a solid blow will usually be enough to destroy them. I didn't read much of what the scroll said about them but I'm sure sensei will be able to tell you more about them if you asked." he explained before the trio fell into a slightly uneasy silence. While Naruto himself seemed perfectly fine with the situation, Sakura and Hinata found themselves trying to understand how he could learn such a technique when after years of practice he couldn't create one clone that was simply an illusion.

It had only been mere moments since the three had arrived inside the training ground when their sensei suddenly appeared as a streak of lightning crashed down before them. If Naruto had been impressed with Yugito before, it was nothing when compared to how he felt after seeing her use such a technique, and if was apparent that Sakura and Hinata were feeling much the same. They had been so surprised by her sudden appearance that they had almost missed the three boxes in her arms.

"Before we begin I want each of you to come and take one of these." Yugito said before each of the members did exactly that. She watched with the corners of her mouth slightly upturned as they opened their respective box to find clothing inside, clothing that seemed to greatly mirror her own current attire. When her students began to send her questioning looks, she decided to have mercy and explain. "There are many shinobi that seem to take certain... liberties when it comes to their everyday attire. While I do not agree with those that take such liberties, it is their right to do so as a person who is willing to sacrifice their life for this village. However, until the three of you solidify your place on this time, you are not shinobi and therefore you do not have such rights. Even after you do, you will continue to wear these until I state otherwise. I will return in ten minutes, by which time I will expect you to have changed."

Once again their sensei turned away from them and seemed to disappear in an instant.

When Naruto turned to try and gauge the reactions of his teammates, he found himself taking a step backwards as Sakura appeared mere moments away from attacking him. He didn't exactly understand why, it wasn't like he had given their sensei the idea of giving them uniforms.

"I may not have much choice in whether or not I change into these things but if you even think of peeping..." she hissed as she gathered her things and took a slightly trembling Hinata deeper into the surrounding forest.

"I-I wasn't..." he stuttered but the two had already disappeared from view. Of course the idea _had _occurred to him, as it would have any young man his age, but he hadn't even harbored the intention of acting on such thoughts for even the slightest moment. Not only would Sakura beat him within an inch of his life, but he was sure that his new sensei wouldn't exactly have kind things to say about his actions if she knew.

With a heavy sigh, Naruto began to change into his new outfit. Unlike Sakura, and possibly even Hinata, Naruto didn't mind in the slightest that he would have to give up his orange jumpsuit. He loathed the thing almost as much, if not more so, then everyone else around him. It may have been that very reason why Naruto had stripped down to his boxers in what must have been record time.

The first article of his new clothing that Naruto put on were the pair of slightly baggy, black pants so that at least he wasn't standing in the middle of the clearing in only his boxers if Hinata and Sakura happened to finish changing before him. When he pulled the nearly skin tight, black tanktop over his head and down around him, he wondered if it was strange how excited he felt about wearing his new clothing. Finally, once his new boots were tied and the black tape had been applied to the bottom of his pants, all that was left in the box was a roll of white fabric, which he assumed was to take the place of the gloves his sensei wore.

When he began experimenting wit his new cloths, testing to see how they felt when he moved about, Naruto found that a black band had been placed inside the left pocket of his pants. It was around then that he realized what it must have been for when his hitai-ate slid down slightly, revealing a deep blue band. As loathed as he was to admit it, it had taken him quite a few tries before the medal plate was attached to the center of the cloth. The cloth he had been given was far larger than his last one so he was forced to fold it a few times before it looked right.

He had just finished tying the now black band of his hitai-ate around his forehead when his sensei and fellow Jinchuuriki appeared behind him in yet another streak of lightning, he was definitely going to have to ask her to teach him that technique. When she began looking him over, Naruto felt an odd sense of pride when she began nodding in approval.

"The others?" she asked suddenly, and at once panic gripped Naruto's chest. Yugito seemed to realize what had caused the change in her student and raised her hands as if to placate him. "They still have time, it has only been eight minutes."

"They went to change right after you left so they should be done soon." he finally replied, but sadly his sensei knew that he was greatly underestimating how long it would take his female teammates to change.

As she began counting down the time once it reached thirty seconds, Yugito heard Naruto sigh gently when Sakura and Hinata reappeared. When the young blond had seen the two entering the clearing, he found himself hoping that he wasn't staring to hard. The pink haired Haruno appeared as though she believed her old cloths had suited her much better, and she would have been right if you asked anyone other than Naruto. While she didn't seem to like them, she still wore the clothing with far more confidence than the poor girl trying to hid behind her. Hinata attempted to cover far more of herself with her arms and hands than she was physically able, she also appeared as though a loud noise would send her fleeing from the clearing, if not the village altogether. Their new black tanktop was not all that revealing, since it only left their arms bare and fell just short of revealing any cleavage, but it was still a far cry from her large and bulky jacket. It was also far tighter and Naruto was beginning to wonder if Hinata had always been so well endowed. Even Yugito had been a bit shocked when the twelve year old had stopped in front of her, but thinking back to her own youth had her realizing that she herself hadn't been that much smaller than the Hyuuga. Hinata's chest was by no means unnatural but she would certainly be considered large among other girls her age. In the end Yugito, and Naruto despite how much he wanted to deny it, felt very pleased with her choice.

"Now that everyone had gathered, we shall perform an exercise that has proved itself useful throughout my career as a shinobi." Yugito announced even as she seated herself on the ground before motioning for them to do the same. As each of her pupils sat down in front of her and tried to mirror her posture, the former Kumo-nin continued. "Meditation is a tool used by many for a great number of reasons, two of the greatest being simple relaxation and to clear ones mind. There may be a time when you are asked as a shinobi of this village to do something that goes against everything you stand for and it will be during those times that you realize that the ability to clear ones mind is an irreplaceable asset to someone in our line of work. Because of this, before every practice, I want the three of you to close your eyes and allow your mind to drift."

"I thought that meditation was used to clear our mind?" Sakura inquired, wondering for a moment if her sensei had simply spoken wrong.

"To a trained mind meditation can bring about many results, however it would be foolish of me to expect the three of you to be able to completely clear your minds. Not only are you still very young, but none of you have ever trained in this art before now, correct?" Yugito paused to allow her team just enough time to begin nodding. "Then for now you are to do as I instructed. Relax and allow you mind to drift wherever it may. Do not direct your thoughts, even if they led to something that you do not wish to think about. It is during these times that we sometimes find ourselves realizing who we truly are as a person, and perhaps realizing that we have been making mistakes throughout our lives."

As he followed his sensei's lead and closed his eyes, Naruto soon found that he was one of those whose mind longed to drift in the direction of thoughts he would rather not deal with. Not only did he have far more perverted thoughts than he would ever admit but Naruto came to realize that his sensei's meditation exercise would make it very difficult to continue living behind his mask. When his thoughts turned towards the villagers and their treatment of him throughout his life, Naruto felt himself frowning and knew that there was nothing he could do about that. There was no way he could force himself to continue smiling like a fool with those thoughts racing throughout his mind. Still, he couldn't believe how liberating it felt to do something as simple as frown.

"You may open your eyes now." their sensei instructed, her own crimson eyes slowly fluttering open. As she looked at each of her students in turn, she found herself struggling not to smile when she noticed Naruto's frown. Oddly he was joined by Sakura in frowning. "I want each of you to tell us what you found yourself thinking of the most. While personal, sharing information with your teammates will help build a level of trust between you. I myself found myself thinking of my life before coming to Konoha but admitting that I have never been more happy in my life. Hyuuga-san, please tells us what you thought of."

"M-My family." Hinata whispered, clearly uncomfortable about the subject.

"What about your family?" Yugito pressed. Being one who was never actually able to 'build a level of trust' with anyone in her old village, the Jinchuuriki of Nibi was left hoping that the Hokage had been correct when he had told her that such an exercise would help them all. In the end she felt that she played the part of expert fairly well, at least to her is seemed as though she knew what she was talking about.

Hinata appeared for a moment as if she were thinking about ignoring her sensei's question and simply taking whatever punishment she was given rather than answering. After a quick glance into the cat-like eyes of her sensei, she knew that not answering wasn't an option. "H-How they treat me. I-I th-thought about m-my tou-san and how n-nothing I do is ever g-good enough for him. H-He doesn't seem to r-realize how hard I try, o-or that all I w-want is for him t-to smile a-at me like he did before my k-kaa-san died."

Nothing was said as the young Hyuuga finished speaking, it wasn't for lack of trying but none of them could think of a single thing to say. None of them knew what her life had been like, Sakura because her own parents had loved her unconditionally her entire life, and the two Jinchuuriki because they had never even known their parents. None of them knew the pain of being surrounded by ones' family and still feeling unloved and unwanted. In the end it was Naruto who spoke first.

"Your tou-san is an idiot."

"Naruto!" cried Sakura, shooting a nervous glance towards the young Hyuuga only to find her close to tears. "You shouldn't..."

"What? What else would you call a person who could treat their family like that? If you ask me, Hinata is too good for those bastards!"

"Luckily no one asked you, now both of you be silent." snapped Yugito and immediately her pupils did as she ordered. Once they fell silent Yugito turned her attention back towards Hinata and continued. "Your tou-san is an idiot."

"S-Sensei! You shouldn't... Naruto, shut up!" shouted Sakura once again while the only male member of their team continued to laugh and cheer loudly.

"I happen to agree with Naruto. If her tou-san is too blind to see that our Hinata is one of the kindest and most gentle people in this village than I will treat him as the fool that he is. I told you the first time we met that I read your files and in them were notes from your past sensei-tachi from the academy. The most helpful I found were from your Umino Iruka. In his notes he explained that while Hinata's shyness and lack of confidence would make life as a shinobi difficult, he felt that she was a compassionate person. Iruka stated that this kindness of hers paired with her phenomenal chakra control meant that she was an ideal candidate to act as a teams medical support. The ability to harm others is often sought after but the ability to heal is one without equal in our world. Why else do you think that your own Tsunade is so well known? It is not because of her destructive powers but the fact that she can heal wounds no other medic could heal. However, do not believe for one second that Hinata is completely without the means to fight against others. If she were trained as a medic-nin, she would have the knowledge to inflict the most pain on her opponent without ever threatening their life."

"W-Will... W-Will I really b-be able to train as a m-medic-nin?" Hinata inquired, for once her team found a look of excitement in her peal-like eyes. It was a look they all found that they wanted to bring out in the shy Hyuuga more.

"I'll be honest with you, Hinata.... You don't mind if I call you Hinata, do you?" she found herself asking, only to continued why her pupil quickly shook her head. "As I was saying, I don't know many medical jutsus because I rarely find myself in need of them but what ones I do know I would be more than happy to teach you. If, when you finish learning what I have to teach, you find yourself wishing to learn more, I will ask the Hokage to grant you access to the hospital's library."

"Th-Thank you, sensei." whispered Hinata, and although she was still speaking in a hushed tone the others noticed that they didn't have to struggle as much to hear her.

"Now that we've decided that Hinata's tou-san is an idiot, Sakura please continue."

"I thought a lot about Sasuke-kun and an old friend of mine." Sakura replied, looking as though she hadn't enjoyed her thoughts at all. This confused both Hinata and Naruto because any time the pink haired girl was around Sasuke she appeared to be at her happiest.

"And?"

"M-My friend was like a nee-chan to me and I threw our friendship away over a guy who has never shown any interest in either of us. I never thought about it before but I must have hurt her feelings pretty badly... I-I really did, and still do, like Sasuke-kun but is it really impossible to like the same guy and still be friends?"

"I-I... I do not think so." Hinata answered when she noticed that for once her sensei and Naruto had chosen to stay silent. She could understand why Naruto wouldn't want to offer his own advice but their sensei was so beautiful and confident, surely she would have some sort of advice for Sakura. "I-If a friend of m-mine liked the same guy as m-me, I don't th-think I would want to l-lose that friend even if I g-gained the attention of the b-boy. I-It would feel t-to much like be-betrayal. P-Plus I don't think that whether or n-not you and Ino-chan are fr-friends truly m-matters to S-Sasuke-kun."

"W-Who said I was talking about Ino-pig?!" the kunoichi shouted, ignoring the looks of disbelief that were being sent her way by her teammates and sensei. When Sakura crossed her arms across her chest and began staring at a spot on the ground in front of her, her sensei decided to take pity on her and turned towards Naruto.

"Before you go, Naruto, I believe that I will take my turn." she stated before turning to the two girls and looking at each of them in turn. "My thoughts will require a bit of explaining on my part and regardless of how you feel about me in the end, you must remember that I am still your sensei and you have yet to prove to me that you are capable as a shinobi. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sensei." Hinata and Sakura replied at once, Naruto would only stare back at his sensei in disbelief. Would she really tell his teammates about what she truly was? Did she not fear that they would despise her or think that she was nothing more than a demon?

Yugito sighed deeply to calm her nerves before pushing herself to her feet and turning her back to her team. She closed her eyes and heard a startled gasp sound out from her team when the large seal in the small of her back came into view as she lifted her shirt slightly. While shocking to see such a seal for the first time, she knew that two of the three had no idea of its significance.

"You see, I am what is known as a Jinchuuriki, a human sacrifice that was used to seal away the soul of one of the Bijuu. This seal was placed on me mere moments after my birth and marks me as the vessel of Nibi no Nekomata. At the cost of her life, the Sandaime Raikage called upon the powers of death itself and tore the beast's soul from its body before sealing it inside of me. It was a sacrifice that keep my village from becoming nothing more than charred ruins hidden away in Kaminari no Kuni."

When she returned her shirt to its original position, Yugito turned around to face her students and wasn't truly surprised to find them staring back at her in disbelief. When Yugito saw Sakura drop her gaze to ground, she reassured herself that she was an intelligent girl, that she would think everything through before reacting. Hinata, however, was forced to deal with more than the simple fact that her sensei was the vessel for one of the Bijuu, but was also from the country that had cost her so much.

The fear in the young kunoichi's eyes told her everything she needed to know. "Hinata... I realize that my former village has taken so much away from you, but I need you to understand that there is a reason why I am no longer a part of that village. I was nothing more than a tool to them, something that they could use to their hearts content before tossing it aside whenever it suited them. I despise that village and I'm sorry for ever being a part of it, but I cannot change where I was born just as I had no say in becoming what I am."

"A d-demon." Sakura whispered fearfully but before Yugito could ask her what she meant, Naruto leapt to his feet with a look of rage contorting what was usually his happy-go-lucky expression.

"DON'T CALL HER A DEMON!"

"I-I'm..." Sakura tried to say but seeing her teammate, seeing Naruto of all people, this angry had honestly scared her more than anything she could remember.

"Naruto, calm down and let her speak!" ordered Yugito, although she could understand why Naruto had responded in such a way. After all, if they believed her to be a demon than the Jinchuuriki of Kyuubi must surely be the same.

"I-I was just shocked, I didn't mean that sensei was a demon!" Sakura shouted, now feeling more angry towards the blond than scared. In all honesty Sakura would later find herself wishing that she had stopped speaking then. "Why are you so upset anyway? What exactly does my opinion of sensei even have to do with you?!"

"I was scared!"

"Scared of what? Stop dancing around the subject and just spit it out already!"

"I was scared that you and Hinata would think that I was a demon!"

"Why would we..." Sakura started before being cut off by her sensei.

"Because Naruto is also a Jinchuuriki." Yugito announced even as Naruto turned away from his team and began roughly wiping the tears from his eyes. Almost at once Sakura and Hinata both forgot all about their own troubles and began staring at the blond's back in horror. "He feared that if you both believed that my demon and I were one and the same, then the same would be true if you ever found out about his. Despite what you have been told, the Yondaime Hokage did not destroy the Kyuubi but rather sacrificed his life to seal it's soul inside Naruto. The Sandaime Hokage saw that the villagers had chosen to ignore the last wish of the Yondaime, which was that Naruto was to be seen as a hero, and upon returning to his post as Hokage was forced to create a law to protect him. This law stated that nothing of what truly happened that night would be told to the younger generations, that they would be told that the his predecessor had destroyed the Kyuubi at the cost of his life. He believed that this law would allow Naruto a chance to grow up normally, to perhaps find friends among those his age. Sadly the law was not perfect and it did not stop the parents of this village from telling their children to stay away from him, some even told their children that he was evil."

If he were honest with himself, Naruto would admit that he was simply waiting for his teammates to scream at him and call him a demon before fleeing. What he hadn't been expecting was for someone to throw theirself into his back and wrap their arms around him tightly. As he spun around, taking the person holding him with him as he did so, Naruto found his sensei and Sakura staring at the person on his back in disbelief. Since he was looking at the pair it was pretty obvious who it was holding him from behind, regardless of how hard it was to believe.

"H-Hinata..." began Naruto but the usually shy Hyuuga cut him off.

"I-I'm sorry. C-Can w-we just stay like t-this while I t-talk?" Hinata asked, her face beginning to flush a deep crimson. This was obvious to Yugito and Sakura but Naruto couldn't see her face so was still terribly confused. He had no way of knowing that the Hyuuga had hugged him on impulse and was now far too embarrassed by her actions to allow him to see her.

"S-Sure."

"I-I just w-want to tell you th-that I believe the Y-Yondaime, t-that I b-believe you are a h-hero. I-I'm s-sorry for the pain it has c-caused you b-but I want to th-thank y-you for your sa-sacrifice, because w-without it I w-wouldn't even be a-alive."

"Besides, your too loud and immature to be a demon." added Sakura with a smirk. "I also can't remember there being any stories which depict the Kyuubi as having a ramen addiction, or being a midget."

"I'm not a midget, I just haven't hit my growth spurt!" cried Naruto, his vision began to fade as tears began swelling up in his eyes. "A-And I'm n-not addicted to ra-ramen, I c-can stop eating it any t-time I w-want!"

Yugito watched as Hinata and Naruto returned to their seats with a small smile in her face, the elderly Hokage had been right about revealing to her team that she was a Jinchuuriki. Everything had turned out far better than she could have hoped and she almost felt bad for what she had done to him the previous evening during her 'demonstration' of her control over Nib's power. _Oh well, there is little about it I can do now aside from apologizing._

"Hinata." Yugito began, drawing the attention of Hyuuga away from her crush. "I need to know if you are comfortable being a member of this team. I would like for you to answer me honestly and regardless of your answer it will not effect your chances of becoming a shinobi. If you do not feel comfortable I will ask for you to be transferred to another team, not sent back to the academy."

"I-I... I-I want to s-stay."

"I cannot tell you how pleased I am to hear that, Hinata. Naruto, I believe that it is your turn." she said as the young blond became the focus of the three females. For some reason this made the would-be Genin slightly nervous if his shifting eyes were any indication of his true feelings.

"D-Do I have to?" he asked, or rather whined. The look he received from his sensei was more than enough to answer his question. "W-Well, I couldn't help thinking about how nice everyone looks in their new outfits and that j-jackets should be made illegal."

If anyone had been confused as to the nature of his last comment, they wouldn't have been after Naruto found himself sneaking more than his fair share of glances towards a certain Hyuuga. She didn't know why Sakura appeared to be so outraged by his comment but none the less Yugito found herself holding back her pupil as she attempted to exact punishment against the pervert. The poor Hyuuga in question looked torn between fainting and looking pleased that Naruto had finally noticed her, although she would have rather he noticed a different part of her.

"Naruto is a soon-to-be thirteen year old boy, and it is completely natural for him to begin to notice members of the opposite sex. Also, I was the one that forced him to tell us what his thoughts had been of, so we cannot get upset with him for being honest. Just be glad that he had the decency to word his thoughts the way he had, I can think of much more vulgar words he could have used."

"Fine." spat Sakura, as if the very thought of allowing Naruto to live had left her with a bad taste in her mouth. She would never admit it to anyone but Sakura was secretly pleased that the only male member of their team thought that they looked nice in their sensei's outfit, and also couldn't blame him for noticing Hinata's... development. A small part of her felt glad that the Hyuuga liked the blond next to her and hadn't decided to go after Sasuke. After all, she had the unfair advantage of developing earlier than the other girls in their class, herself included.

"Now that it has been decided that Naruto shall live, there is a small test I wish for the three of you to undergo." Yugito announced as she reached into the small pouch that rested just behind her right hip and pulled out four seemingly innocent pieces of paper. "While I am no longer a shinobi of Kumo, there are some traditions that they practice that I believe will be helpful to you. The foremost being the testing of chakra affinity during a teams first practice."

"Chakra affinity?" Sakura asked, a familiar look in her eyes. She often had said look when Iruka began a new lesson while they were in the academy.

"As you are all no doubt aware, there are five major elements; Fire, Wind, Lightning, Earth, Water. Each shinobi is aligned to one or more of these elements, that means that learning a technique of the same type as the one they share an affinity for will be far easier. At your age most are only aligned to a single element but as you grow in abilities, it is possible to awaken an affinity for a second or even a third if you are powerful enough." Yugito explained, and after thinking it over for a few moments the only member of their team with a Y chromosome decided to speak.

"So if I have an affinity for Fire, Katon(Fire Release) jutsus will be easier for me to learn than Raiton(Lightning Release)?"

"Correct. However, if you are aligned to Fire than a Suiton(Water Release) jutsus will be more difficult for you to learn than lets say a Doton(Earth Release) jutsu. Every element has a strength but also a weakness. Fire is weak against Water but strong against Wind, while Wind is strong against Lightning, which is strong against Earth, which is strong against Water. There is no supreme element, making it possible to overpower a shinobi of greater ability if the right technique is used."

"Other than finding out what techniques will be easier for us to learn, does knowing your affinity do anything else?" questioned Sakura, who was already thinking of what element she would like to be aligned to.

"There is a way to change the nature of your chakra into the element you are aligned to but that is something none of you are ready for. That is a very high level technique that, paired with shape manipulation, ventures into jutsu creation." Yugito answered and while she noticed the undeniable look of excitement shinning in the eyes of her team, she knew that she was correct in stating that they were not ready to learn such an ability. After handing each of the three a card, Yugito held up her own and began to chakra her chakra into it. Almost immediately the paper crumpled. "This paper is designed to react to your chakra in a way that will tell you which of the elements you are aligned to. My own paper has become crumpled which tells me that my natural affinity if for Raiton jutsus. All you have to do is channel a small portion of chakra into the paper, the rest will happen automatically."

As they turned their attention towards the piece of paper in their hand, each of them began to channel what they believed to be a small portion of chakra into it. Hinata, Yugito noted, had a reasonable level of chakra and incredible control, she couldn't help but feel pleased when the young woman's paper crumpled much like her own. Sakura easily had the best chakra control of the three of them but sadly it was simply because she had the least amount of chakra to control, when her paper became damp, Yugito began thinking over all the Suiton jutsus she knew. Then came the last of her pupils, and her fellow Jinchuuriki. She hadn't wanted to mention it because she feared that he would become arrogant but Naruto's affinity would matter very little. In terms of potential, Yugito had never seen anything like him and if he wished, he would have no problem learning any jutsu put in front of him. Still, when the Jinchuuriki of Kyuubi channeled a _small _portion of chakra into his paper, small meaning three times more than what Sakura and Hinata had used, his paper quickly slit down the middle. Fuuton jutsus were not one of her specialties and so she knew very little of them, she would have to find someone else to teach him if he wished to learn more than what she could teach.

With one last nod towards her students, Yugito began explaining what each of the reactions had meant. "Hinata, I think you know what element you are aligned to, keep in mind that this means that learning Fuuton jutsus, while possible, will be difficult. Sakura, you are aligned to Water and so Suiton jutsus will be easiest for you to learn, and you will find Doton rather frustrating. You are aligned to Fuuton jutsus, Naruto, so I hope you didn't have your heart set on Katon jutsus."

"Does this mean that Hinata is weaker than me?" Naruto asked gently, as if to take the sting out of his words. It may have helped as Hinata simply looked at their sensei as if curious herself.

"You may very well be stronger than Hinata but that has little to do with her element. What I meant by strengths and weaknesses was that if you attempted to use a Fuuton jutsu against her, and she countered with a Raiton jutsu of equal power, the Fuuton jutsu would win out in the end. Now if you used that same jutsu and she used a Katon jutsu, it would be you tasting defeat. Remember that how and when a technique is used will effect its effectiveness greatly. A powerful jutsu used idiotically can amount to nothing more than property damage while a weak jutsu could eliminate an enemy far more powerful than yourself."

"Are you going to teach us a technique now that you know what element we're aligned to?" Naruto asked, appearing mere moments away from jumping up and down at the prospect of learn a new technique.

"Nope." Yugito stated simply and nearly laughed as the blond's mouth fell wide open and his shoulders drooped pathetically. She had nearly laughed but her team made no such efforts to restrain themselves as Sakura appeared to be struggling to breath and even Hinata had begun to giggle softly while hiding her face behind her knees. With a smile Yugito motioned for him to stay silent when he looked as though he wanted nothing more than to attack her. "I will be teaching you a new technique but it will not be a Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, or Taijutsu. I'll be honest with all three of you, you have your problems. Because she has received training from such a young age, Hinata is the most well rounded of the three of you in terms of chakra. Sakura, you have the greatest control of any of you but this is only because you have a severe lack of chakra. Naruto, as a Jinchuuriki you have massive chakra reserves but they are so vast that you are unable to properly control them. This is why you are able to perform the Kage Bunshin technique while not being able to produce a simple illusion of a clone. The technique I am about to show you will not only increase your level of control, Naruto, but it will also increase the shear amount of chakra you have at your disposal, Sakura."

"If I have so much chakra, why does control matter so much?" Naruto asked while Yugito could only sigh gently. He was still hiding behind his mask. Naruto may have wanted to know the reasoning behind his apparent need for control but he had asked it in such a way that neither Hinata or Sakura thought twice about it. It would appear as though she would have to do something more drastic to force Naruto from behind his mask.

"Not all techniques are like the Kage Bunshin. With your current chakra control you will never be able to learn Genjutsu as it requires a very precise level of control. You may also come to realize that without control, most of your chakra is going to waste. When you created those ten clones earlier, if you had Sakura's or even Hinata's level of control you would have been able to create twice, possibly even three times, as many for that same amount of chakra."

"And me?" inquired Sakura.

"You have the control that is required to master both Genjutsu and medical techniques alike but you lack stamina. As you are now, even if you could perform a medical jutsu or Genjutsu, you lack the capacity to sustain either for very long. However, your lack of stamina will be far easier to fix than Naruto's lack of control, mostly because of what he is. As a Jinchuuriki, our reserves are forced to grow larger in order to handle the strain of the demonic chakra coursing through our system. This means that until Kyuubi has been fully absorbed by the seal, Naruto's reserves will continue to grow larger with each passing day, even if it is only by a normally insignificant amount. Since his reserves only continue to grow larger, it would normally take Naruto years to gain the kind of control that is needed to perform most jutsus."

"Normally? Does that mean that you know a way around this?" asked Naruto, fear evident in his eyes. The very idea of having to spend the next some odd years training to control his chakra while those around him because increasingly stronger frightened him greatly.

"Perhaps. Naruto, I want you to create a clone." Yugito ordered. Her resolve to make him learn how to control his level of chakra only increased when she noticed how much chakra it took him to create a single clone, or rather how much of it had gone to waste. "Hinata, now I would like for you to look at both of them with your Byakugan and tell me what you see."

Yugito and Sakura would have given anything to be able to read the young Hyuuga's mind upon hearing her sensei's words. Although her crimson face said it all, they still would have like to have known what she thought even as she formed a one-handed and activated her families kekkei genkai, the Byakugan.

"I... I-I -don't know..." Hinata whispered as she looked from one copy of Naruto to the other, but even with her eyes she couldn't figure out which one was the original. It was almost as if Naruto had managed to separate himself into two, giving each its own chakra system to work with.

"Meaning what?" Yugito pressed, she already knew what the young woman saw but wanted to hear her say it.

"T-They're exactly a-alike, e-even t-their chakra c-coils are id-identical."

"Naruto, what exactly do you know about that technique?" asked the Jinchuuriki of Nibi even as her pupil dispelled his clone.

"I explained to them earlier that the clones created are physically real, meaning they can bleed and perform jutsus just as I can. The scroll said that when the user creates a clone, their chakra is divided evenly between them, which is probably why Hinata couldn't see any difference between the clone I created and myself. Aside from the fact that they will be dispelled after one or two solid blows, I don't remember much else."

"The Hokage told me that you may not have read the entire description before learning how to perform the technique." sighed his sensei, Naruto could only laugh nervously and scratch the back of his head as he waited for her to continue. "When you explained that your chakra is divided up evenly amongst your clones, you failed to properly express how dangerous this can be. Earlier when you created those ten clones you effectively divided your chakra into eleven, this is something most people cannot afford to do, which is why that technique was sealed away and labeled a Kinjutsu. If you had not been a Jinchuuriki, you may well have died upon creating one single clone, let alone the thousands your created the night you learned it."

"B-Baka!" shouted Sakura as she smacked the blond in the back of his head, even the shy Hyuuga appeared as though she wanted to do just that as well.

"Easy, it is also true that if Naruto hadn't been able to, it would have resulted in two deaths instead of one. He was lucky this time, but do not do something that stupid again, do you understand me?"

"O-Of course!" Naruto replied quickly, he breathed a sigh of relief when his sensei nodded her head and continued her explanation. Apparently he would survive another day.

"Since I am not originally from Konoha, I have never heard of such a technique before so I was informed by the Hokage what exactly the technique entitles. While the ability to produce a clone that can perform any technique that the original knows is a plus, it is so much more than that, as Naruto would have known if he had bothered to read what the scroll had said."

"Ok, I'm an idiot! I should have been more careful! Can we please move on?" cried the Genin hopeful as his sensei and teammates smiled, or smiled and laughed in Sakura's case.

"The reason these clones are considered so powerful is that they have the ability to help the original in ways other clones never could. To best explain the technique I want you to think of Naruto and his clones as separate people, each as real as the last. If I were to ask Naruto, the original, to have tea..."

"Can't we get some ramen?" Naruto interrupted. If the looks he received told him anything, they told him that it honestly didn't matter what he and his sensei were doing during the hypothetical situation.

"Fine. If I were to ask Naruto to accompany me for a bowl of ramen, it doesn't matter what kind of ramen it is so don't bother asking, and then asked the others to use that time to study different techniques, when they were destroyed or if they dispelled themselves, their knowledge would be transferred to Naruto. Everything they saw or learned would become known to the original as if he had done it all himself."

"B-But earlier y-you said that N-Naruto-kun had cr-created t-thousands before." Hinata whispered, the others weren't sure if her stutter was from the shock of how powerful the technique could become or if it was her usual stutter. In either case both she and Sakura continued to stare at an equally shocked Naruto in awe and disbelief.

"This, of course, makes these types of clones ideal for scouting and infiltration. In a way this makes Naruto an even more able scout than any Inuzuka simply because he could send multiple clones into an enemy village and learn everything they saw without ever having entered the village himself. Even the Hyuuga Clan's Byakugan is not without its limits in terms of distance. Still, this has nothing to do with chakra control." Yugito admitted, slightly pleased with herself that her team looked as though one last shock would be more than enough to make them faint. Luckily she had a few more left to deliver. "Knowledge is not the only thing that can be transferred back to the original once the clones are destroyed. If he were to create ten clones, Naruto could have those clones practice chakra control exercises for five hours while he lounged in the shade of a nearby tree. Once gone Naruto would have increased in his level of control as if he had trained for fifty hours straight."

"P-Please tell me that's it." pleaded Sakura but those words could have just as easily fallen from the mouths of any of those on her team. Naruto, it would seem, wanted her to finish speaking simply because as she continued to list its abilities, it made him feel even worse that he had passed them off a mere clones.

"Not quite. This last part has to do with the transfer of knowledge but I felt that it should be explained separately. If Naruto were to create nine clones, meaning there were ten Narutos in all, and I gave him a technique to learn it would take him one tenth the time to learn it than if he had attempted it by himself. If the technique would usually take a person ten days to learn, Naruto and his clones would learn it in one. If he were to create one thousand clones, it wouldn't even take him a half an hour. To put it simply, the only thing Naruto cannot use his clones for is physical training, that he will have to do himself."

"That almost seems unfair." Sakura muttered softly.

"Even as a fellow Jinchuuriki, I doubt that I will ever be able to create as many clones as Naruto does and if I could it would not be until Nibi is completely absorbed into the seal. Sadly, aside from an accelerated healing rate, it is one of the only positives to being a Jinchuuriki. Does having an abundance of chakra seem worth it to you if it means you will have to go through life knowing that your village will forever deny your very existence? To our kind... finding love and acceptance is a dream that, I fear, may never come true."

After listening to her sensei's words, Sakura tried again and again to apologize but try as she might she simply couldn't find the words. Her frustration and anguish almost seemed to make the air heavier around them, and in the end both Naruto and Yugito shook off her attempted apology. They knew that she would have had no idea what their lives had been like, so how could they expect her to understand how her words had sounded to them?

"Don't worry about it, you couldn't have known." Yugito assured her before turning back to her team and straightening her shoulders. "Now back to our original discussion, chakra control. I'm sure that you have studied one or two methods of attaining control over your chakra but the one I have in mind is far more advanced. Please observe."

The would-be Genins watched as their sensei turned and began walking towards the edge of the clearing. When she came upon a rather large tree, their mouths dropped when she simply continued up it without breaking stride. Yugito found herself smirking ever-so-slightly when she walked out onto a branch and stared down at her team of shocked pupils, perhaps it was the fact that she was hanging upside down from said branch that had them staring up at her in shock.

"This is a method of training known as 'Tree Walking' and it is an advanced Genin level skill, so don't be disappointed if it is rather difficult to grasp. This training is to teach you how to bring out the proper amount of chakra and direct it to the proper area of the body. As I explained to Naruto earlier, control is very important or else most of the chakra you call upon goes to waste. Now then, the amount needed to climb a tree is small, but it requires precise control, and it is said that the bottom of the foot is the most difficult area of the body to gather chakra. If this technique is mastered, a shinobi will be able to master any jutsu they are presented, theoretically anyway." Yugito explained smoothly, but it was obvious that her pupils were all too ready to begin their new training. "There is a second meaning to this training and that is to help you develop the stamina to control your chakra properly. Depending on the jutsu, controlling your chakra properly can be very difficult as a shinobi will usually be gathering his or her chakra during a battle. Those types of strenuous situations can make controlling ones' chakra even more difficult. So that's it as far as explanations go, the rest will be up to you. The three of you have kunai, correct?"

"We're shinobi aren't we?" asked Naruto as he and the others pulled the knife-live projectile from their respective holsters.

"Not yet you aren't." Yugito replied, ignoring the slightly defeated looks of her team. "I want you to use those kunai to mark how high you've traveled, make that mark your goal and try to surpass it with each attempt. Also, you may wish to have a running start as the momentum may help you."

After channeling what he believed to be a small amount of chakra into his feet, Naruto learned something very important as soon as his foot came in contact with the tree he had chosen. He had used far too much chakra which resulted in him lying flat on his back on the forest floor with a foot shaped hole in the bark of the tree. Without getting up he scowled at the tree as if it had somehow been it's fault that he had failed before he turned his attention towards Hinata and Sakura, when he did he felt his eyes widen slightly. Sakura had managed to make it almost completely up her tree while Hinata managed to reach nearly the same spot on hers. As the two landed after marking their progress with their kunai, Naruto noticed that they both appeared reluctant to say anything after looking towards him and his 'progress'.

"I did tell you that Sakura had the best control out of the three of you, and that Hinata had received training since she was young." Yugito commented as she dropped down beside him even as the two young females turned back to their trees to begin again. "I'm sure you realize by the fact that there is a foot shaped hole in your tree that you still used far too much chakra."

"I barely called on any chakra at all, so how am I supposed to call on less?"

"By decreasing the amount of chakra you have to call upon. In short, create a number of clones to work alongside you." Yugito instructed calmly before turning and walking towards her other students. After glancing over her shoulder, she found that Naruto had already created twenty copies of himself and all of them were beginning to channel their chakra towards their feet. Sensing the amount of chakra they were using, Yugito found that they were still not perfect, but they would allow him to make at least some progress if he was persistent enough. Persistence was something Yugito felt Naruto had in spades.

When the white haired Jinchuuriki arrived at the trees Sakura and Hinata had been using, she wasn't terribly surprised to find the pink haired kunoichi breathing rather shallow after only her fourth or fifth attempt. As Hinata dropped gracefully back down to the forest floor after having reacted the top of her tree yet again, Yugito decided to speak.

"Sakura, I'm sure you've realized by now the difference in stamina between Hinata, Naruto, and yourself?"

"Y-Yes." breathed Sakura as she watched the Hyuuga make her way back up her tree once more. In the academy she had never put much thought into training, believing that if she were able to pass the academy's final exam that she would be in a good position as a Genin to begin training. She knew now that she had been not only wrong but foolish.

"For now I want you to walk, not run, to about halfway up the tree before walking back down. With your level of control you should have no problem walking but with your lack of stamina it could be dangerous for you to climb any higher than halfway. After each attempt I want you to take a few minutes to rest before beginning again. I also want you to have Hinata perform this same exercise once you've noticed that she is struggling to continue. If you need me I'll be over with Naruto making sure he doesn't somehow manage to kill himself."

It was nearly four hours later when Yugito finally called an end to practice and when she did even Naruto appeared ready to pass out from exhaustion. In her mind, however, it had been well worth it to push her team to such an extreme because each of them had increased in control and stamina more than she had expected. With the short breaks between her attempts, even Sakura was able to go the entire four hours without collapsing. In the end Yugito believed that her increase in stamina was almost as impressive as Naruto's increase in control. Hinata had increased in both areas as well but Yugito hadn't really been worried about her, she was, after all, the only one on her team that had levels of both control and stamina that were above average.

As her team collapsed to the ground in front of her, Yugito came to a realization. They had not only accepted both Naruto and herself for what they where, but Hinata had even been able to overcome her fear of Kumo-nins to accept her as her sensei. Not only had they done this but they had even thrown themselves into her training and gave it their all, the fact that they couldn't even stand was proof enough for that. In the end it would come down to one thing.

"Let me ask you something, is this the type of effort I can come to expect from the three of you or is it just something you plan on doing until I solidify your place on my team?"

"That would be kind of stupid wouldn't it? I mean, we've been training for years to become shinobi, we can't just suddenly stop training because we achieved that, can we?" replied Naruto, who appeared to be the only one capable to speech between them. Still the others found themselves nodding along with him to show their sensei that they felt the same way.

That was all she needed to know.

"I am pleased that you feel that way because starting now you three are officially members of Team Nine, and as such I will expect the same type of effort I saw from you today." she announced but her newly formed team continued to stare back at her as if they expected her to begin laughing and tell them that she had been joking.

"A-Are you serious? T-That quickly?"

If Sakura's words were any indication, her and her teammates had resigned themselves to being _almost _Genin for quite some time. Having done this, they never would have believed that their sensei would allow them to pass her passive exam after a single practice. Yugito watched her team struggling to their feet and decided to take pity on them.

"I assure you that I am completely serious. Sakura, Hinata, you both excepted Naruto and I when few others before you have, and that alone told me most of what I needed to know about the two of you. Hinata, you allowed yourself to look past where I was from and see me for who I am and not just another Kumo-nin, this was something I was honestly worried about when I learned that you would be placed on my team. I then watched as the three of you threw yourselves into my training without even a hint of hesitation, and as a fellow shinobi and as your sensei I can say that I was very pleased by your work ethic. I had faith that the three of you would eventually pass my exam but to be honest even I never thought that I would be making this announcement after a single practice."

"That's what you get for underestimating us." teased Naruto with his usual smirk.

"I suppose it is." agreed Yugito before addressing her students as a whole. "I have a few more announcements to make before I dismiss you. First and foremost being that I want each of you here by five o'clock tomorrow morning, and Genin or not you will not enjoy your punishment if you are late. Also, until I state otherwise, missions are to be carried out by Naruto's clones, I would much rather spend my time training you than watching you repair a fence. Sakura, Hinata, you are dismissed until tomorrow morning, Naruto, I would like to speak with you about your training."

Upon hearing this neither Hinata nor Sakura moved from their spot. It was obvious to their sensei they the pair were torn between their curiosity of what said training would entitle and their belief that perhaps Yugito planned on favoring the blond Jinchuuriki. Yugito's first impulse was to brush their look aside and allow them to think what they wished, however she quickly realized that if she allowed their feelings to fester it would only lead to problems amongst her team.

"I want the two of you to know that any time you wish for me to teach you something, you are more than welcome to ask. The reason Naruto is being offered extra training is because the Hokage and I believe that it would be best if he learned how to call upon and control the Kyuubi's chakra as quickly as possible. As the only other Jinchuuriki within Konoha you should realize that I am the only one qualified to teach this to him."

"W-Would... W-Would it be a-alright if we w-watched?" Hinata asked gently.

"No!" snapped Yugito, only to sigh heavily and run her hands over her face tiredly when she noticed the young Hyuuga flinch as if she had been struck. "Please forgive me, Hinata, but you do not understand how dangerous this type of training can be. I am sure that you have heard stories of the Kyuubi's power and so you must understand that this is the same power that Naruto will be learning to control. If he were to become overwhelmed by the demon's chakra then you would be in grave danger. While Naruto himself would never harm a teammate, if he lost control he would attack anyone around him without hesitation."

"I-I un-understand."

"During tomorrows practice I plan on teaching each of you a ninjutsu that is suited to your specific alignment. Perhaps after the three of you are dismissed I can begin teaching you and Sakura a few medical jutsus or genjutsus?" Yugito offered and immediately knew that the situation had resolved itself when the pair of kunoichi smiled and agreed readily enough.

As he watched his teammates leave the training ground, Naruto was pleased that his sensei had managed to appease them. He wanted desperately to learn how to harness his demon's power but if it would upset the others and cause problems for his team than Naruto would have told his sensei to forget about the extra training. He couldn't even begin to describe what it would have been like if he had been the one ignored by his sensei so that she could train one of the others, and since he couldn't even describe how betrayed he would have felt, Naruto never wanted to make them go through it.

"Before we begin there are a few things you must know about this type of training." Yugito began and immediately she noticed that her pupil had given her his undivided attention. "It is extremely dangerous and until I tell you otherwise, you are to _never _practice this without my presence. You must also give this training your undivided attention. Is that understood?"

"Of course, sensei." replied the blond, a wide smile spreading across his face as if to say 'how could you ever doubt me'.

"Since I am giving up my own valuable time you train you, I have a few conditions you must fulfill before I begin teaching you." Yugito began as she turned away from her student. She knew this was a lie. Even if he had not been on her team or required no training, she would have been at there anyway training herself. "First, you are to stop hiding behind that foolish mask of yours. I hereby order you to frown when you feel like frowning, to smile when you feel like smiling, and if you ever hide behind that mask while in my presence again, I will drop you as my student. This training requires a certain level of emotional control and I need to know if you can handle that, but I can't if you are always hiding what you are feeling. You are not a fool, Naruto, and if you wish to pretend to be one, do it on your own time. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sensei." sighed Naruto, his expression almost immediately relaxing into a passive, almost thoughtful look.

"The second condition is that I want you to teach me how to perform the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu." she said, rolling her crimson eyes when she saw her student smirk. The white-haired Jounin felt that this condition was the most important. If she were able to learn said technique, then she would be able to teach her students individually and never have to worry about whether or not she was neglecting one. Not to mention how valuable they would be to her own training.

"I can live with that. Do you want me to teach it to you now, that way we can begin training tomorrow after our usual practice?"

Yugito tried to keep her face as passive as her students but even an untrained Genin would be able to see the excitement gleaming in her eyes. Naruto was no different. He watched as his sensei tried to look indifferent as she agreed but he just couldn't shake the feeling that on the inside she was jumping up and down.

"From what I remember, here is how you perform the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu." stated the blond before he began resiting everything the Scroll of Seals had said about performing the jutsu. As he spoke, Naruto began to demonstrate each step, almost as if he had forgotten that he was teaching the move to his own sensei. A sensei that was considered by most to be a genius in the shinobi arts.

While it had taken Naruto a little over an hour to learn the technique even without someone to teach it to him, once the blond was finished explaining and demonstrating, it only took Yugito a few tries before she was able to create five perfect clones. He watched in awe as his sensei continued to create more and more clones each time and before long the clearing was completely covered in smoke, and when it cleared he found himself looking at a small army of clones. As quickly as they had arrived, all but one of the clones had disappeared in yet another cloud of smoke.

"Naruto, please whisper something into my clones ear. I wish to know what it is like to absorb knowledge through this technique." Yugito ordered only to watch as her clones walked towards the blond and bent over slightly so that he would be able to whisper into her ear. When her clone suddenly disappeared, Yugito smirked. "I'll be sure to try their ramen soon if it is as good as you say."

"Make sure you try their deluxe bowl." Naruto said with a slightly dreamy look in his eyes.

"Which reminds me. I have been told by the Hokage that I am to limit the amount of ramen you consume in a day." When she saw the outraged expression on her pupil's face, Yugito decided to continue before the blond tried to assassinate their Hokage. "Eating ramen is fine in moderation but you are almost thirteen years old, you need far more nutrients than what is in ramen. Did you ever think that the reason why you are one of the shortest kids in your class might have something to do with the fact that you eat ramen for just about every meal of every day?"

"B-But..."

"I am not a cruel person. For now I will only cut you back to having ramen for one meal a day, later I will cut it back to only once every other day. While a Jinchuuriki can survive on very little, or meals with very little nutritional value, such as ramen, we are not immune to the side effects. To be honest we are at greater risk than most because we do not notice these side effects as quickly as we would have otherwise."

"Fine." muttered Naruto, his arms held a crossed his chest as he glared at the ground in front of him. That is until he remembered that Teuchi had mentioned adding a few new things to their menu. _Now I can follow sensei's orders and still eat with those who actually seem to care about me._

"The Hokage is not a fool, Naruto."

Naruto looked up to find his sensei speaking to him once again.

"He knows the reason why you choose to eat there more often than not and it was also he that suggested to the owner that he expand his menu. The owner and his musume, while they love having you as a customer, have been worried about you eating nothing but ramen. Ayame, I believe her name is, has been sneaking pills and vitamins into your food for the past few years so that you will get at least some of the nutrients that are needed." Yugito explained, enjoying the look of shock that was clearly visible on her student's face. As she walked past him on her way out of the training ground, she paused for a moment and rested her hand on his shoulder. "You are very lucky. While there may not be many of them, those that care for you would give anything to see you with an honest smile on your face. Hokage-sama thinks of you as his magomusuko, Iruka thinks of you as a touto, and those people at the ramen stand care about you enough that they would ban you from their shop and happily take a large decrease in income just so you would eat more nutritious food. There are even some that care about you greatly that you have not even noticed yet. My advice is to open your eyes, hold those you love close, and protect them with everything that you are."

With that Yugito left Naruto's side and quickly disappeared from view, leaving the blond to himself as he struggled to keep the tears in his eyes from falling. With a pained sob, Naruto used the back of his hand to wipe the tears from his eyes. He knew she had been right. He may not have been liked by many but those that did, cared for him more than he would ever know. After forming a familiar cross shaped seal, Naruto created two clones and together the three of them exited the training ground before splitting up.

()()()()()()()

Looking out over the stacks of paperwork that cluttered his desk, the Sandaime Hokage couldn't help but sigh. It was not the first time that he wished that his predecessor had lived simply so that he wouldn't have to deal with the annoyance of endless files that needed his signature. Of course the fact that the man had been their most powerful Hokage to date, and a wonderful man, only made it all the more depressing when he realized that the man was gone and nothing was going to bring him back.

His tired eyes seemed to light up as the sounds of shouting came from directly outside his office doors. The Hokage knew of only one person who could cause such chaos simply by appearing and if anything he welcomed the coming distraction. If there was anything Uzumaki Naruto was best at, it was causing at distraction.

"I'm here to see Jii-chan, and it's going to take a lot more than two mask wearing pansies and a secretary to stop me!" shouted the blond as he entered the office, slamming the door behind him just to prove his point to his ANBU guards and secretary. While he was always pleased to see the young man, he didn't know how many more raises he could offer the poor woman before she quite from the stress Naruto caused her. If she chose to leave than he would have to find yet another secretary, and that would just be more paperwork for him to fill out.

"What can I do for you, Naruto?" asked the Hokage only to sigh heavily when the blond marched right up to his desk and slammed his hands against it. "So she told you."

"Damn right she did!" roared Naruto, who found himself struggling not to end his little game by cracking a smile.

"Child, you must understand..."

"I don't have to understand anything!" he countered, causing a single bead of sweat to appear on the back of the Hokage's head. "I only came here to tell you what I think and how I feel about your little order!"

"And that is?"

"I... want to thank you." yelled Naruto before finishing his sentence at just above a whisper.

"W-What did you..." started the Hokage but the blond once again cut him off.

"I said 'thank you'. Thank you for looking out for me all these years and for always being there for me when I needed you most. Thank you for teaching me what it means to be a shinobi of Konoha and for showing me that this village is worth protecting. I just... want to say thank you for giving me a chance when no one else would." whispered Naruto gently, his eyes focused on the paperwork that littered the man's desk. When he finally looked up, the Hokage found himself staring into a pair of cerulean pools that were glossed over with unshed tears. After clearing his eyes of the tears, Naruto smiled widely and continued. "Above all else I want to thank you for keeping that seat warm for me when I become Hokage!"

With that the clone disappeared.

Even after the cloud of smoke dissipated, the elderly Hokage could only stare at the spot where the clone had been as his own tears slowly rolled down his cheeks. Abandoning any thought of completing his work, the Sandaime Hokage turned his chair around and began staring out over his village. With a laugh that came out as a sob, the elderly man couldn't help but believe that allowing Nii Yugito a place inside his village had been one of his greatest decisions.

()()()()()()()

Umino Iruka found himself in a position not unlike the Sandaime Hokage, although he didn't detest paperwork nearly as much as the older shinobi. With his current classes graduation, Iruka found himself right back where he started when he first began as a teacher, teaching the first year class what it meant to be a shinobi. Luckily, however, he had a few weeks to prepare for the brats.

"You should really pay more attention to your surroundings." came an all to familiar voice as Iruka looked up to find one Uzumaki Naruto sitting on top of the desk in the first row.

"And this must be the first time I've ever seen you enter the academy without being forced and also, sitting in the first row? Are you feeling well?" he countered, chuckling when the blond gave a mocking laugh to show his appreciation for his comments. "So why are you here? Please tell me you didn't piss off your sensei and get sent back here."

"Like that would ever happen! Yugito-sensei even told us after our training that we had solidified our place on her team and were now officially Genin of Konohagakure no Sato. She's even going to begin teaching me how to control Kyuubi's power since I taught her how to perform Kage Bunshin no Jutsu."

"Apparently she also told you that orange was not a color a shinobi should wear." he said as he suddenly realized that the Genin wasn't wearing his usual orange clothing.

"I didn't have much say in that, neither did Sakura-chan or Hinata-chan. Yugito-sensei told us when she gave these to us that since we weren't really shinobi of Konoha, that we didn't deserve the same rights as them; meaning the right to dress how they want. Even though we're officially Genin, it doesn't really matter since she told us to wear them until she said otherwise."

"How much do you actually know about her?"

"I know that she used to be a Kumo-nin, that was something that scared Hinata-chan even more than when she admitted to being a Jinchuuriki. She's really tough but at the same time you know that she honestly cares about us regardless of what she says or does. Yugito-sensei even showed us a new chakra control technique and also tested our elemental affinities. So far Hinata-chan is the most well-rounded of the three of us because she's been trained by her family for years, but Sakura-chan has near perfect chakra control so she's going to teach them genjutsu and medical jutsus. She told us that I'm going to have the hardest time out of all of us because of what I am but thanks to my clones I can do the equivalent of weeks worth of training in days."

"She's already done more than most in her position do in a month." breathed Iruka, pleased that the beautiful former Kumo-nin was working out so well. Admittedly, he had been a bit skeptical of her at first, mostly because she would be in charge Naruto, but he trusted the word of the Hokage and vowed to let her actions determine whether or not she deserved his trust. The fact that Naruto already spoke so highly of her told him everything he needed to know.

"Because Yugito-sensei admitted to being a Jinchuuriki, I was able to gauge Sakura-chan and Hinata-chan's reaction. In the end I was able to admit to being one as well, and for the first time in my life I have people my own age that seem to care about me despite knowing what I am. I... and I wouldn't even be in this position if it weren't for you. You pushed me to better myself and helped me when I was struggling with something, despite how you felt about me at first. You were the first sensei I ever had in this academy that looked at me and saw me as I am, and not as the Kyuubi. I just wanted to say thank you for everything you've done for me."

"You've helped me more than you know, Naruto." Iruka said calmly, using his many years of training to hide the fact that his ex-student's words nearly had him in tears. "Before I realized that you were nothing more than a loudmouth brat, I was in a bad place and I despised who I was. Thanks to you I've become a better person and because of you I'm smiling more than I have since my parents were first taken from me by the Kyuubi."

Iruka watched while smiling ever-so-slightly as his former student hopped down from his place on the desk, his face an impressive shade of red. The smile became more pronounced when the Genin before him scuffed his foot while mumbling something he couldn't quite make out. When that very same Genin erupted in a cloud of smoke, Iruka began laughing at the ridiculousness of his current situation. After all, it wasn't every day that one has a heart to heart with a clone of the last person one would expect to have such a talk in the first place.

()()()()()()()

"How much do I owe you, Ayame-nee?" Naruto asked the auburn haired woman in front of him. He knew the prices for the different sized bowls of ramen by heart but before he could even open his mouth the fiery waitress stated that he was not allowed to order ramen. While it wasn't ramen, he had to admit that the food had been wonderful and actually did make for a nice change of pace.

"This one is on us, Naruto-kun." she replied, her tou-san nodded in agreement as he put the finishing touches on another customer's meal. Normally when they told the young blond that his meal was free, he would cheer happily and run from the stand as if they would change their mind. With the amount of ramen he eats on a normal sitting, it wasn't a completely illogical assumption. This time, however, Naruto stayed seated and appeared to be slightly uncomfortable about something. "Was there something else you needed?"

"My sensei told me that you have been putting pills and vitamins into my food for the past couple years to make sure that I got at least some of what my body needed."

"N-Naruto-kun, I was just so..."

"I understand. I... I just wanted to thank you and Jii-chan for looking out for me and to thank you for allowing me to eat here and for not chasing me off like the others did. I can't tell..."

This time it was Naruto who was cut off as Ayame all but dove across the counter and wrapped her arms around the young Genin's neck. Startled by her behavior, Naruto tried looking at her tou-san for help but found the man turning to face the other direction.

"Y-You don't have to thank us, Naruto-kun." Ayame whispered as she held him tightly, despite the rather uncomfortable position. "You deserve so much better than what you get and there is so much more we wish we could have given you. You are always welcome here and it has been our pleasure to call you our favorite customer."

"Thanks again, Ayame-nee, Jii-chan." he said one last time before hoping down from his seat and exiting the shop. He spared them one last look before he began to walk off in the direction of his apartment. "For everything."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3.

After leaving Ichiraku's it was a relatively short walk before Naruto found himself standing in front of his apartment, staring up at the rather battered building. He had been living by himself for so many years but as grateful as he was towards the Hokage for giving him his own apartment, he truly hated knowing that there was no one there who cared whether he lived or died. With a heavy sigh, the young Genin turned and began walking away from the run down apartment complex.

Naruto wasn't sure exactly how long he had been wandering around his village but when he finally realized that he had drifted rather close to his team's training ground, he reached into his pockets and pulled out the white bandages his sensei had given him. As he began methodically wrapping his hands and forearms in the wrappings, Naruto decided that since he really had nothing better to do than his time would be better spent training instead of wandering around the village.

Upon entering the training ground Naruto formed a simple cross shaped seal before no less than thirty copies of himself appeared throughout the clearing. Without a word the copies turned away from the clearing and their creator before running towards the trees surrounding them, never stopping even as they reached them. After watching his clones race up the trees before marking their progress with one of their kunai, Naruto turned his attention towards the training logs he had been standing by. Since he had nothing of any importance to learn, his clone's only real use at that point was to help him gain control over his chakra while he busied himself with physical exercises.

All at once the sounds of his clones began to fade away as Naruto began his usual series of warm up exercises. He was pleased at how much the rather thin wrappings actually helped his knuckles as he continuously slammed them into the unforgiving wood of the log. When he began a series of kicks, he even noted that the fabric of his pants that covered his shins were even padded very slightly, offering at least some protection while training. Neither would help much during a mission aside from protecting his own body when he struck an opponent, but that was as far as their protection reached.

Once he was done, Naruto wiped the sweat from his brow before creating yet another group of clones, albeit much smaller. While eleven of the twelve clones created moved to stand away from their creator, the twelfth squared his shoulders and prepared to fight. Neither moved for the first few seconds before all at once the clone launched forward and slammed his fist into the original's chest. It hadn't really hurt him much but it was enough to force Naruto to stagger back a few feet. He chuckled and smirked as the other clones began cheering for their comrade, shouting things like 'kick his ass' and 'which one is the clone'.

If anything it pleased the young blond to note that the clone appeared ignorant to the cheers of his brethren, it's complete attention was focused on him. As he launched himself forward and began exchanging blows with his copy, Naruto almost found himself feeling grateful towards the traitor who had revealed to him the truth about Kyuubi. If it weren't for Mizuki's greed, Naruto knew that he would have never been able to learn a technique as powerful as Kage Bunshin, least of all before he had even graduated from the academy. If he were honest with himself, the blond would admit that there was nothing about that night that he would have changed. It had been hard to hear the truth about his role in the Kyuubi's defeat, but he felt oddly relieved to know the true reason why he was so hated throughout the village. There was also the fact that he was able to find out exactly how much his sensei Iruka truly cared for him, and that alone was worth nearly being killed by the traitor.

The battle with the clone suddenly ended as Naruto lifted himself up onto his hands and slammed his right heel into the top of the clones head. As it disappeared in a wisp of smoke, Naruto found himself learning of every opening the clone had found in his stance. Once he was finished working through everything he had learned, Naruto turned and nodded for the next clone to step forward.

When the last clones fell to the ground at his feet before disappearing, Naruto collapsed to his knees, his chest heaving as he struggled to draw breath. By the time the twelfth and final clone stepped forward to challenge him, Naruto found that they were becoming easier to defeat, but still rather taxing since he had already been forced to fight against so many of them. Using the now blooded wrappings that covered his hands and forearms Naruto wiped the sweat from his eyes before looking up.

After looking out over the clearing to find that his clones were still continuing their chakra control exercises, Naruto took one last breath before looking skyward. Countless hours must have past without him realizing it as the once glaring sun had completely dipped behind the western forests that surrounded Konoha.

Once he managed to struggle to his feet, Naruto dismissed his clones only to find himself learning a very valuable lesson when it came to the Kage Bunshin technique. As the rush of knowledge washed over him, Naruto cried out in pain as he slammed his hands to his head and struggled to keep his skull from fracturing like the pain would suggest. When the agony reached its apex, Naruto could only offer a rather anticlimactic whimper before the ground appeared to be speeding towards his face as the word around himself began to fade into darkness.

()()()()()()()

The next morning Naruto wasn't awoken by the familiar bloodcurdling, and oddly soothing, screech of his alarm clock but by a shocking cold enveloping his entire body. Immediately his mind was cleared of it's sleep induced haze as he found himself quickly sinking to the bottom of a very dark, and impossibly cold lake. Rather than die, Naruto kicked and struggled until he was gasping for air as soon as his mouth broke the surface of the water. When he did he found not only Sakura and Hinata standing nearby but his sensei as well, all of which were struggling, with varying degrees of success, to hide their laughter.

"W-Why t-t the fuck did you d-do that?" roared Naruto as he slowly made his way towards the lake's edge. Whether his stutter was from the near icy cold water that seemed to soak him to the bone, or the barely controlled rage they knew was swelling up inside of him they couldn't tell, but one thing was certain. Uzumaki Naruto was not happy.

"It is nearly five and your teammates and I believed that it was time for you to wake up. We were terribly worried that you would end up late for training so we decided to help you along." Yugito answered evenly, as if her reasoning was completely logical. Given that her past life as a Kumo-nin was spent training any time she wasn't on a mission, Yugito had been unable to help herself when she and the others came upon a peacefully sleeping Naruto. Of course she conveniently forgot to tell him that it was originally her idea and that only Sakura had agreed to it readily, Hinata had tried to be the voice of reason but the Jounin could see a mischievous gleam in her eyes.

As much as he wanted to scream at the trio, Naruto knew that if he started he wouldn't be able to stop himself from calling his sensei the rather vulgar words that were lying on the tip of his tongue just waiting to pass through his lips. With his fists clenched tightly, tight enough that his slightly long fingernails were beginning to draw blood as they dug into his skin, Naruto muttered an unheard, yet very impressive, series of curses that were largely directed towards his team as he exited the lake and stalked past his team.

Even as the drops of water continued to fall from every inch of his body, Naruto was forced to quickly remind himself that he couldn't simply laugh the event off and hide his true feelings or else he would suffer the wrath of his sensei. When the pair of cold cerulean settled on Yugito's own crimson pools, he found her smirking ever so slightly, almost as if she were waiting for him to slip back behind his mask. The pair continued to stare into each other's eyes, leaving the rest of their team to look on nervously and wait for one of them to admit defeat.

It was several minutes later, and far longer than it probably should have taken, when Yugito finally began to nod her head. "I'm pleased that you remembered what I told you yesterday and are also taking my threat seriously. I realize that it may be difficult at first but do not allow yourself to believe that I will forgive even the slightest disobedience on this. Do I make myself clear?"

Naruto said nothing in reply, but he hadn't needed to as his glare told his sensei everything she needed to know. While Sakura and Hinata were rather startled by the cold look in the blond's eyes, they were even more confused as to why their sensei appeared so pleased by it. Once Yugito turned her attention towards them and upon noticing the looks she was receiving, she simply waved her hand as if to say that it was unimportant that they needn't trouble themselves over it.

"Before we begin, Naruto, I need you to create three clones." Yugito ordered and even as the young man did as instructed, she quickly followed his lead by creating one of her own. Almost at once Yugito's clone, or at least they assumed that it was the clone, gathered the three Naruto clones and soon led them out of the training ground altogether. "They will be completing our missions for today, I had Naruto create three so that two of them could Henge into both Sakura and Hinata. I decided that it was best if I didn't advertise the fact that we are using Naruto's clones to complete our missions, less questions I'd rather not have to deal with."

Yugito paused for a moment when she noticed the rather suspiciously looks a few of the members of her team were sending her way. "Would you rather pick up some trash out of a park or would you like for me to fulfill my promise to you and begin teaching you a ninjutsu?"

Their answer was rather obvious.

"So, what kind of ninjutsu will you teach us?" Naruto asked as if Yugito had never said anything before offering to teach them a new technique.

"I thought about this last night and believe that I have found each of you a ninjutsu that you should be able to learn. Sakura, Hinata, neither of you have ever been tricked into stealing a scroll from our Hokage so do not be discouraged if you find it difficult to learn these techniques. These are higher level techniques and are vastly different from the jutsus that the academy taught you."

"You make fun of me a lot for being tricked but who was it you asked to teach you the very same technique I learned that night?" countered Naruto while his two female teammates tried to hide their laughter behind their hands, with varying degrees of success.

"Anyway." continued the former Kumo-nin, pointedly ignoring Naruto's comment. Without pause, the young Jounin formed a cross shaped hand seal and quickly created two more clones, only continuing once the smoke had cleared. "I'm going to be perfectly honest with the three of you. Part of the reason why I had Naruto teach me this technique was so that I never neglected any of you. Whether it is the original or a clone teaching you, it matters little since the only difference between us is that I will not disappear when struck. So that none of you feel as though the original is spending too much time with one of the others, I will not be telling you which is the clone and which is the real me."

"Err... Sensei?" started Naruto, only to continue once he noticed that he had the woman's attention. "Isn't it rather obvious which of you is the original? I mean, you've been talking to us the entire time. So... yeah."

"And if I had already decided not to tell you when the clones were made, wouldn't it have been all to easy to have one of the clones begin speaking as if it were the creator?" inquired every copy of their sensei at once. When the three shared identical smirks, Naruto and the rest of the team were beginning to worry about whatever they had planned. They found out why when the Jounin and her copies suddenly disappeared from view, only to reappear a few moments later standing in a group not far from them. It was now impossible to tell them apart.

"Sakura, you're with me. I've got a C-ranked Suiton ninjutsu that I think you'll like." stated the far left copy. She then nodded towards the others before turning and walking away from the group, leaving her student to follow after her.

"Hinata, I'll be teaching you a B-ranked Raiton ninjutsu." continued the Yugito who had once been standing in the center of the trio. This copy mimicked the first and soon disappeared into the surrounding forest, leaving one last copy and Naruto.

"The Fuuton ninjutsu I plan on teaching you is one of the few Wind element techniques that I know. As I told you and the others yesterday, it is possible to have multiple affinities given time, and I am a prime example of this. While my main element, as you are aware, is Lightning, I later gained an affinity for Earth, and then finally Fire. As it stands, I am limited in my knowledge of ninjutsu that deal with the elements Water and Wind, and because of this there is little I will be able to teach you and Sakura. However, once I have taught you all I can, I will do the same for you as I will for the others when they have learned the few medical jutsus I have to teach. I bring our situation before the Hokage and ask him what he believes would be best."

"I understand."

"Good. Now watch closely." Yugito instructed, even as she motioned for him to stand by her side before turning and looking out over the lake. After completing a relatively short series of hand seals, Yugito brought her right hand to her mouth even as she began filling her lungs with as much air as she possible could. As she began to exhale, Naruto felt his jaw drop as a massive current of air erupted from the mouth of his sensei and raced across the surface of the lake. Even the trees along the far side of the lake failed to stop the current as many of them were uprooted and thrown deeper into the forest.

Before he could even begin to put into words when he felt, Naruto noticed a torrent of water racing across the lake that was followed shortly by a bolt of pale blue lightning. When the stream of water collided with the other side of the lake, Naruto found that it reacted much the same way the Fuuton jutsu had, although it left more trees without bark than uprooted. The Raiton jutsu, however, was something else entirely. Almost as soon as it made landfall, the surrounding area exploded with enough force that Naruto felt the ground beneath him quake. When the dust and debris settled, the young blond could only watch on in disbelief as the lake rushed to fill in the void the jutsu had created on its bank.

"The three techniques you just witnessed are rather similar in how they are performed, and in the case of all three, their power relies on two things. The amount of chakra you are able to draw from your mouth into your lungs, and, of course, the level of control you have over said chakra. The importance of control cannot be stated enough, Naruto, and I'm pleased that you seem to understand this if your willingness to train in your spare time is any indication. Including yesterdays practice, how long would you say you've been practicing chakra control exercises?"

Naruto thought about his training the day before and quickly converted the hours he and his clones had put in into days before coming to a rough estimate. "I'd say a little over twelve days total."

"Twelve days might not seem like a lot but you must remember that this is twelve, twenty-four hour days of nothing but training. While your control is still far from perfect, you are well on your way to gaining control over your chakra." Yugito mused, smiling herself when she saw the pleased look on her students face. _And to think that I was worried about becoming a sensei. Hokage-sama must see things in others that they themselves remain ignorant to if he knew that I would come to enjoy my time spent with my team._

"I was meaning to tell you, Yugito-sensei." Naruto said, laughing nervously as he reached up and began scratching the back of his head. It would see that scratching his head was honestly a habit of his and wasn't something he did to put others off guard. "I found out that if you're training with a large number of clones for any extended period of time, it's best not to dismiss them all at once."

"Care to explain why?" Yugito pressed, knowing that there was something worth hearing buried in her students statement.

With a heavy sigh, Naruto began to speak. "After I was finished training yesterday, and immediately after I dismissed my clones, I felt as though my skull was splitting in two before falling unconscious. I just figured you would rather hear this from me and not learn about it from experience."

"I suppose I can't fault you on your mistake as it was impossible for you to have known that would happen. Thank you for the warning, but I need to get you started on this jutsu or we'll start to fall behind schedule." Yugito announced and after Naruto focused his attention solely on her, she began her explanation. "Fuuton: Daitoppa(Wind Release: Great Breakthrough) is a C-ranked ninjutsu with rather impressive power when one factors in it's relatively low rank. The hands seals are as follows; Horse, Bird, Monkey, Boar, Dragon. After completing the hand seals, you must draw chakra into your mouth and from there you must draw it into your lungs and hold it there before exhaling. For this technique to be used at it's most powerful, everything must be precise. A small slip of a finger while performing the hand seals and you will end up with little more than a deep breath."

Yugito watched as the young Genin began to practice the hand seals with a look of intense concentration on his face. The first few times the blond took his time, making sure that he at least remembered what hand seals were needed and when to perform them. Once he was confident that their order was no longer an issue, he began performing them at higher speeds. After this it was only a short while longer before he felt himself ready to attempt the ninjutsu his sensei had shown him.

As he turned and began facing the reflective surface of the now calm lake, Naruto couldn't believe how nervous he felt. Ever since he entered the academy, learning new techniques had always been at the forefront of his mind, and now that he was finally being taught one, he couldn't even stop his hands from shaking. After taking one last soothing breath, Naruto began to channel his chakra into his mouth before drawing it into his lungs even as his hands molded into familiar seals.

_Now hold it for a moment and then release. _He thought even has he began to form the final hand seal. With the hand seals finished Naruto mimicked what his sensei had done and brought his right hand up to his mouth and began to force the chakra from his lungs. As a current of air erupted from his mouth, Naruto watched in wide eyed fascination as the large, albeit much smaller than his sensei's, current shot across the large body of water. When the technique reached the same cluster of trees Yugito had hit, he noted that while it was not means powerful enough to uproot the trees and send them farther into the forest, it was at least able to force a few of the battered trees to the ground.

Once the technique ended, a brilliantly smiling Naruto turned towards his sensei and waited to hear what she thought. Yugito would never tell him but at that moment he reminded her greatly of a puppy who wished to be praised.

"You have advance further than I thought." she stated, only to realize that what she had said had not been what he wanted to hear when she noticed that the light in his eyes seemed to dim slightly even as his smile faltered for a moment. "Do not get me wrong, I am very proud of you. I was simply commenting on the fact that you have progressed further than I believed you would, even when I factored in your clones. While your control is still below average, it is a vast improvement over where you were yesterday morning. Be proud, Naruto, as few could advance so far in such a short amount of time."

"So what do we do now?" Naruto inquired even as his face began to flush with a small bit o color. He did not blush often, and hated it when he did, but he couldn't help but do so as his sensei told him to be proud of his progress. Naruto had only known the woman for a little more than a day, and yet she was easily one of his most precious people simply because she treated him as she would anyone else.

"We wait." she answered simply.

It was a few minutes after Naruto witnessed a small, nearly half the size of his, torrent of water streak across the once calm lake when a copy of his sensei appeared in the clearing followed shortly by a smiling Sakura. The two Genin had been talking for only a few moments when a bright light flashed across the surface, not long after that a blushing Hinata rejoined the group. She even began to tremble slightly as her teammates began to praise her for performing the ninjutsu while at the same time praising themselves for doing the same.

"Pride is one thing." announced their sensei, when they turned they found that she had already dismissed the pair of clones. "But arrogance is something I loath. You have performed a single ninjutsu, and while you should be proud of this fact, it does not make you unbeatable. If you believe otherwise, I would be more than happy to spar with each of you and validate my claim. Any of you feel like sparing?"

Almost immediately the three Genin began to shack their heads.

"Then we can move on. Before the end of yesterday's practice, Hinata and Sakura were able to master Tree Walking, and thanks to his willingness to put in hours of extra training, Naruto was able to do the same last night. The fact that you were all able to get such results with the ninjutsu you were just taught tells me that you are ready to learn this new technique. Like Tree Walking it is an exercise in chakra control, however it is on a completely different level in terms of difficulty. Water Walking."

Without ever turning away from her students, Yugito took a single step backwards onto the shallow waters of the lake. She smirked as her team's look of disbelief only seemed to increase with ever step backwards she took, she finally stopped when she was a good distance away from the lake's edge.

"Unlike Tree Walking, which only requires that you channel just enough chakra to your feet that it allows you to stick of the tree, or any other solid surface you may wish to walk up, this technique requires you to constantly expel only enough chakra that it allows you to walk along the surface of the water. This amount must be in direct proportion to the weight of the users body; use to little and you will sink, too much and you will be repelled and fall. However, there is one thing that the two have in common and that is that an explanation alone will not do much good without practice."

This time Naruto didn't even bother attempting to perform the technique without his clones, admittedly a part of this reason was because he really didn't want to look like a fool in front of Sakura and Hinata by falling into the lack. The young Genin watched as his teammates began channeling what they believed to be an appropriate amount of chakra before slowly stepping out onto the lake. Although their first few steps led to them standing with their feet just barely below the surface of the water, and even though they had both been forced to grab hold of the other when they lost balance, they pair of kunoichi adapted to the new method of training rather quickly. While their steps were still awkward, the fact remained that they had both succeeded in walking along the surface of the water while he remained standing on solid ground.

Truly believing that he would inevitably fall, Naruto quickly resigned himself to his fate and soon followed his clones out onto the lake. Surprisingly, though he had sunk nearly to the center of his shins, he had not fallen like he had believed he would. Rather than risking his limited success, the Jinchuuriki and his clones stood completely still as they began focusing entirely on lifting themselves onto the surface. Slowly, almost painfully slow, the sea of blonds began to rise up and were soon taking uneasy steps just as his teammates were.

"Very good." Yugito stated, offering them each a proud look. "Sakura, Hinata, I expected no lease from the two of you. Naruto, I am very pleased with your improvement. I am also pleased to see that you learned from your mistake during your first attempt at Tree Walking and took your time instead of rushing into it. Together the three of you have progressed beyond any of my expectations."

As each of her pupils turned towards her and smiled brilliantly at the praise she had given them, the look that surprised her the most was the one given to her seconds before the only male on their team fell backwards into the lake. Even she failed to conceal her smile when Sakura began laughing at Naruto's predicament only to find herself falling backwards as well. With a gently shake of her head, Yugito started walking back towards dry land, pausing momentarily to give the only member of her team still standing atop the lake a little shove. Hinata gave a startles squeal before she too fell.

Once her team had managed to float back to the surface before walking back to the lakes edge as she instructed, Yugito still found herself unable to keep from smiling even as she spoke. "As you are no doubt aware, there is an enormous difference between being able to devote your entire being to staying afloat and being able to do so while you mind is focused elsewhere. Once mastered this is almost a passive ability; meaning that when mastered you will not even realize that you have left dry land and it will require little to no thought on your part to continue standing upright."

"So was that the reason why you pushed Hinata-chan into the lake, _Sensei_? To prove your point?" inquired Naruto, only to have his questions once again ignored by the woman in question.

"That is it for our formal practice but I believe that each of you have something extra that you wished to learn from me? Hinata, Sakura, I have decided to teach you both one of the most basic and widely utilized medical jutsus that I knew. Naruto, it is rather obvious what I will be teaching you so while I get the girls started, I want you to begin the meditation exercise I showed you yesterday."

Naruto complied without a word and as Yugito lead her two female pupils away from the clearing, Sakura couldn't help but comment. "How in the world did you get him to listen to you so quickly? I mean, it took Iruka-sensei years before Naruto would listen to him and aside from the two of you, I've only ever seen him listen to the Hokage."

Yugito didn't answer immediately, mostly because she was deciding whether she even should or if she should simply ignore the questions. In the end the crimson eyed Jounin sighed heavily before answering.

"Once again it comes down to what we are." Yugito said, leaving her students to wonder just how far reaching the effects of being a Jinchuuriki were. "Because he has never known the love of a real family, Naruto has long since decided to make his own out those who have shown him even the slightest bit of kindness. Hokage-sama, Umino Iruka, and the people at his favorite ramen stand. All of them have earned a place in Naruto's family because unlike the vast majority of this village, they have not only shown him kindness, but honestly love that boy as if he were truly their family as well. The role I play in this is slightly different, because I share a bond with him that only seven others in this world could possibly understand. Sadly, as similar as our lives have been, I fear that even I couldn't possibly imagine the amount of pain Naruto has been forced to live through."

"W-What do you m-mean?" asked Hinata, who appeared more than willing to postpone her training if it meant that she would be able to better understand the boy she had a crush on for so many years. Despite this eagerness, she couldn't help feeling as though what she was about to hear would change the way she saw not only Naruto but her village as well.

"I want you to keep in mind that the tails of a Bijuu signified their power, and none of them could even remotely compare to Kyuubi. This is far too much power to be wielded by a child on any sort of conscious level and so those that despised Naruto were free to do as they pleased without any sort of repercussions, save those of the Hokage. You are probable the only two close to Naruto's age to know this but when I was told of Naruto's past by the Hokage, he informed me that as a child Naruto was often attacked a beaten by the villagers and even some of the shinobi. This, thankfully, never happened to me as I've always had at least some level of control over Nibi's power. I was the pariah of my village, loathed more than anything in the world, and yet I know nothing of the pain of having my village attack me."

"W-Why would..." Sakura began, her eyes wide with horror and a look of disgust that was shared by her soft spoken teammate.

"Do you even have to ask?" spat Yugito. "Naruto and I are Jinchuuriki because the Yondaime Hokage and the Sandaime Raikage sacrificed their lives to save the villagers they swore to protect. I truly believe that they both thought the best in their people and believed that they would honor their last wishes, but Naruto and I may never be accepted by this world."

"W-We accept you." challenged Hinata, earning her a small smile from her sensei.

"Thank you."

"Sensei, if Naruto thinks of the Hokage as his family, then why is he so disrespectful?"

Whatever reaction they had expected to hear from Sakura's question, their usually so reserved sensei laughing had definitely not been it.

"Disrespectful? Haruno Sakura, after listening to everything I just told you, I'm surprised you even asked such a question."

"I don't understa... Naruto actually thinks of Hokage-sama as his jii-san." stated the pink-haired shinobi. It was apparent by the look on the young Hyuuga heiress' face that she too had come to the same conclusion as her teammate.

"Exactly. As disrespectful as the title may seem to those who doesn't understand the relationship those two share, it is a title Hokage-sama holds in the highest regard. This makeshift family that Naruto has formed over the years is not one sided, of that I can assure you. To Hokage-sama, Naruto is as much his magomusuko as Sarutobi Konohamaru. To Iruka and Ayame, Naruto is every bit their touto. Teuchi more than likely thinks of him as a musuko, or possibly as a prospective suitor for his musume, despite the difference in age." explained Yugito, before smirking slightly when she noticed the slightly panicked look on the pearl-eyes shinobi's face. "Don't worry, Hinata, those to think of each other as siblings, nothing more, nothing less."

Hinata quickly ducked her head as she sputtered her denial.

"Now then, as much as Hinata would like to continue talking about her Naruto-kun, I believe I have a medical jutsu to teach the pair of you." Yugito teased, taking great pleasure in the fierce blush that began to spread out across the young Hyuuga's face when she had referred to Naruto as hers. The age difference may have been nearly six years but talking to Sakura and Hinata was the closest Yugito had ever come to 'girl talk'. She still found it amazing how utterly incomparable her life in Konoha and her life in Kumo were.

"P-Please." whispered Hinata, her face had reacted the point that it had long since stopped looking red and had begun to turn a deep purple.

"The technique I plan on teaching you is called Shousen Jutsu(Mystical Palm Technique) and as I said earlier, it is one of the most basic and widely used jutsus in a medic-nins arsenal. The reason being is that it continues to evolve with the user. There are countless jutsus that will produce one result regardless of how powerful the user becomes. After learning this technique you will more than likely only be able to heal the very basic of injuries, small cuts and bruises, but as you grow in power and overall ability, so will it. Someone as skilled as Tsunade-sama can use this technique to perform entire surgeries that otherwise would not be possible. It is one of the few jutsus that can be used to gauge a persons progress with its effect."

With that Yugito went on to explain how to perform the technique before creating a single clone and leaving her pupils to practice on her clone. Of course Yugito realized that neither herself nor Naruto were ideal candidates for a person to practice medical jutsus on simply because of their healing factor, but surprisingly not may people willingly volunteered to be sliced and healed repeatedly. Who knew.

When she arrived back in the clearing she realized that Naruto had managed to make some headway in learning to clear his mind as he failed to react to her presence in the slightest. While not terribly impressive, when one considered who it was, the feat became such.

After sitting down across from her student, Yugito continued to study the young blond for a few more moments before attempting to gain his attention. When he finally opened his eyes he found himself saying nothing and simply waiting for his sensei to begin.

"There are two ways for a Jinchuuriki to call upon the power of their demon and neither way is perfect. The first relies on the vessels emotions, as it is an incredibly simple task to call upon such power when enraged. However, in this state, if a person draws upon too much of their demon's chakra, they _will _lose themselves completely to its influence. Where you once longed for nothing more than to protect those around you, you would slaughter them yourself without a second thought if you lost control. The second relies on the vessel eliminating such emotions. With a calm and clear mind a Jinchuuriki can call upon their demon's power in its entirety. However, just as becoming enraged allows one to call upon such power quickly, clearing ones' mind of all emotions makes it that much more difficult. Both paths have their positives and their glaring negatives. Regardless of which path you choose, I will train you, so do not allow fear to affect your decision."

"The second path." Naruto answer immediately.

"Such conviction."

"There is no other option for me. I will not allow myself to risk those I love simply to make my training a little easier. If I ever lost control... If I killed someone I swore I would protect, I would never be able to live with myself. If even a scratch came from me losing control, I would never be able to look the one I hurt in the eye again."

"This path is a long one, and you may not see results as quickly as you would like." Yugito warned, secretly pleased with not only Naruto's choice but his reasoning behind it as well. His precious people truly were his entire reason for living.

"Is it the one you chose?"

"It is."

"Then I know I made the right choice." Naruto mused absently, his cheeks flushing slightly when he realized that he had said this aloud and that his sensei had heard ever word he had said.

"For now you training will consist of meditation. Until you are able to clear your mind, there is nothing more I can teach you in terms of unlocking your potential as a Jinchuuriki. I will also say this, clearing ones' mind and keeping it clear is the most difficult part of this training. When you are able to accomplish this, you will begin to see results. Until then this will seem tedious and often times frustrating to no end."

"I understand."

Yugito nodded slowly even as she closed her eyes. "Then begin."

Once again time seemed to pass with him realizing it. When his eyes finally fluttered open, the only light he could see was from the stars shinning brightly overhead. And yet, there before him sat his sensei, who looked as though she had not moved in the slightest since initially sitting across from him. He wondered briefly how this was possible as it looked like she was sitting on a stick from where he was sitting.

"Do emotions affect how a person draws upon their own chakra?" Naruto asked, not truly wanting to interrupt his sensei's meditation but longing to know the answer to the question that had plagued him since she had told him it's affects on drawing out their demon's chakra.

"Emotions affect absolutely everything we do. Each and every one of us makes countless decisions based on what we like to do and what our pride in our work tell us to do; we follow the orders of the Hokage because we respect him and love the village we strive to protect." Yugito explained, only finally opening her eyes once she was finished speaking. Once she had done this, the Jounin leaned slightly to the side and removed the stick that Naruto has spotted. "That, was annoying."

"Why did you wait so long before removing it? Why didn't you simply move?"

"Because clearing ones' mind when they're at peace is doubtlessly easier to do when there is something in their surroundings that is trying to gain their attention. To fully master this technique you must be able to block out everything around you, even if it's jabbing you in the ass."

Naruto couldn't help himself and began to laugh.

"To better answer your first question, times of emotional stress have been known to allow a person to bring out their hidden potential. Was there some reason for asking this?"

"I was thinking about me fight with Mizuki. At the time I was able to create around one thousand clones without breaking a sweat, but now if I tried creating in the hundreds, I think I'd been barely able to move." he admitted, clearly not enjoying the fact that was forced to do so in front of anyone, let alone his sensei.

"The Hokage and I believe the reason why you were able to do so was because you released a seemingly insignificant portion of Kyuubi's power. At the time I was in the middle of fleeing Kumo and I believe Nibi sensed this surge of power and began leading me to Konoha. I suppose I should thank you for that, my time in Konoha has been like a dream, one I often fear I will wake up from."

"So it wasn't me, it was Kyuubi?"

There was something odd in the young Genin's voice that led Yugito to believe that he felt upset with the sudden revelation. It was almost as though he now believed that he would never be able to accomplish anything with his own power.

"You can be such a fool." Yugito sighed, only to continue once she noticed the look being sent her way by her fellow Jinchuuriki. "You have mastered Tree Walking in one day, and today you learned a ninjutsu and Water Walking all under your own power. You are _not _nothing without Kyuubi's power as the Hokage himself has noted that you have incredible potential. It is not Kyuubi's power that led you to train for hours on end last night so that you won't be left behind by your teammates. The power we have inside of us is no different from Hinata's Byakugan or a Uchiha's Sharingan. These abilities are our tools to use just as we use a shuriken or ninjutsu in battle. Naruto, you are a shinobi of Konoha, and as such it is your duty to use each and every one of your abilities to insure that it survives."

The Genin didn't reply immediately, but when he did it was in the form of a question that Yugito had not been expecting. "What's the Byakugan?"

"Y-You... Did you ever stay awake in the academy?!" shouted Yugito while Naruto simply laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head. "The Byakugan is a kekkei genkai unique to the Hyuuga Clan. It is a doujutsu that, when activated, grants the user an extra-sensory perception, which gives them penetrating sight and telescopic vision. It also allows them to see the tenketsu; the internal chakra coil system's 361 pressure points, of an opponent. This vision also grants the member a near 360 degree view of their surroundings. The higher the skill of the clan member, the further the distance they can sense incoming attacks."

"W-Whoa." whispered Naruto, who was beginning to wonder if there wasn't a lot more to the painfully shy Hyuuga heiress than he had once believed if she had such a powerful ability.

"That isn't all. The Hyuuga Clan has long since developed a style of fighting they call Juuken(Gentle Fist), that works in conjunction with their Byakugan's abilities. A practitioner of Juuken uses their fingers or palms to emit chakra that will flow into their opponents body's at the tenketsu points. When the hand of a Juuken user draws close enough to strike, they can stop or increase their opponent's chakra flow. The internal chakra coils which spread throughout the body are also wrapped around the internal chakra producing organs. So, if the internal coils are attacked, it also damage these internal organs as well. Juuken's attacks are so devastating because a shinobi cannot train their internal body as they can their muscles, meaning such damage can be a critical for even the most highly skilled shinobi. The tenketsu also serve as the connectors and exit points for the chakra pathways. So when they are stopped are attacked by a Juuken user, the shinobi greatly loses his or her ability to utilize their chakra for jutsu, if not completely."

"A-And Hinata-chan can do this?" Naruto asked.

"She has been training in the are of Juuken since she was three years old. However, because of the way she is treated by her family and because of the severe lack of confidence she has in herself because of this, her skills are lacking. There is also the fact that Hinata is a very kind person and does not wish to harm anyone but a true enemy, which leaves her very inexperienced as she is afraid to spar with anyone. Jinchuuriki are not the only ones in this world who fear losing control and harming those around them, keep that in mind."

With that the pair lapsed into a seemingly comfortable silence and just as Yugito was about to suggest that they put an end to the day's training, a single masked shinobi appeared beside them. It was apparent to Yugito by the shinobi's slender frame, smooth pale skin, and long purple hair that the member of ANBU was female. However Naruto lacked the experience Yugito had with members of the village's most elite shinobi, other than the ones posted outside the Hokage's office, and was quickly beginning to worry as she stood there silently in her bone-white mask.

Finally the shinobi spoke, and when she did it came as a shock to Naruto how gentle the intimating shinobi's voice was. "Nii-san, Uzumaki-san, your presence has been requested by Hokage-sama. Please report to his office at her earliest convenience."

And just as suddenly as she had arrived, she disappeared.

"I see no reason to keep Hokage-sama waiting." Yugito mused as she and her pupil stood.

As soon as the young Genin was finished stretching his stiff muscles, he wondered briefly if he had ever sat in one place for so long, Yugito reached out and grabbed how of his shoulder before they two disappeared from the clearing in Team Nine's training ground. When they arrived just inside the Hokage's office no more than a few seconds later, Naruto turned towards his sensei and offered her a look that told her quite clearly what he thought of her actions. However, said woman merely smirked back at him before turning her back on him and making her way over to the Hokage.

The Hokage watched the interaction before the two and failed to suppress his smile. "This may sound incredibly odd, Naruto, but I can't tell you how pleased I am to see you frown."

"Well, with someone like Yugito-sensei around I'm given plenty of chances to practice."

"Gaki." muttered Yugito but both of their comments lost all meaning when they turned to glare at each other and failed to keep the corners of their mouth from twitching upwards.

"The reason I've called you here is that I have a few matters I'd like to discuss with the pair of you. The reason I've chosen now to speak with you and am not simply waiting until tomorrow morning when your team arrives to collect their mission will become apparent shortly." stated the Hokage as he began shuffling through the countless papers on his desk until he apparently found the one he was looking for. After scanning the sheet a few times, the Hokage look across his desk at the pair of shinobi with an almost tired expression. "I realize how tedious these missions may appear to be, especially to someone of your abilities, Yugito, but if you wish to delegate the responsibility to Naruto and his clones, please keep in mind that you are using Konoha's number one prankster."

"What did he do?" sighed Yugito, who tried to catch her student's eyes but the blond had found something incredibly interesting to look at on the floor in front of him.

"In the beginning I was completely unaware that the members of Team Nine were not what they seemed, that is until the members of Team Seven arrived. Now, imagine my surprise when one Haruno Sakura took the opportunity to trip one Uchiha Sasuke before being congratulated for such an act by both Naruto and surprisingly Hyuuga Hinata. Then, as if the actions of your team were not suspicious enough, the mission you were sent on had to be redone by another team because Naruto and his clones believed that the owner of the shed they were supposed to be painting deserved to have a shed unlike any other. They used one entire side of the shed to paint a rather crude mural of someone matching Uchiha Sasuke's description and a very surprised looking goat. At the time I did not know exactly what was done to the shed and mistakenly sent Team Seven to redo the mission."

It would seem by the fact that Naruto's shoulders were shacking terribly in his effort to keep from laughing, that he felt absolutely no remorse for what he and his clones had done. In fact, once he finally looked towards his sensei and found her eyes dancing with her own barely suppressed laughter, his control wavered and he fell from his chair, howling with laughter. Even the Hokage was forced to bite back his smile. It took a little while but eventually Naruto was able to regain control of himself and climb back into his chair.

"By now I've long since realized that I'd only be wasting my breath by trying to get you to stop with your pranks, but I must ask you to refrain from doing them while on missions. Regardless of how insignificant they may seem."

"He will behave himself, Hokage-sama, of that I can promise you." Yugito answered in place of Naruto, although one look towards his sensei had him quickly nodding his head in agreement.

Surprisingly the Hokage merely rolled his eyes at Yugito comment. "Nii Yugito, do not think for one second that you are fooling anyone but your pupil. I did not fail to notice that the actions of your team of clones went unchallenged by your own."

"I-I... I don't know what you're talking about." Yugito stuttered, and for the first time since their initial meeting, Naruto saw his sensei behaving in a way that was not her usual confident self.

"Right." said the Hokage, winking towards Naruto once the woman's attention was turned elsewhere. "The last item I wish to discuss is about your current living arrangements."

"What about them?" Yugito asked. Ever since being released form the hospital, she had been staying at one of the inns Konoha had to offer and although it was costing her most of advance in pay the Hokage had given her, it was all she could find on such short notice.

"As much as I loath to inform you of this, management of the inn has decided that the room you were occupying is needed, and has seen fit to terminate whatever agreement you once had. With you past as a Kumo-nin and the fact that you have not bothered to hide what you are, I have been unable to find anyone willing to rent you a room."

Yugito said nothing in response but she did take some amount of solace on the fact that the elderly man before her appeared disgusted by the actions of his village. Whatever she might have been feeling at the moment was lost as confusion washed over her the second she looked towards her student only to find him nearly bouncing in his seat.

"She can stay with me!" Naruto announced, looking as though nothing would make him happier than to have his sensei living with him. Although both of those present were forced to admit that it probably would leave him feeling happier than he ever had in his life.

"Naruto, your offer is appreciated but I..." Yugito began but was quickly cut off by the excited young Genin the moment he realized that she was about to decline his offer.

"I won't take no for an answer." Naruto announced stubbornly. "The rent is really cheap thanks to Hokage-jii and the extra bedroom is already furnished and has it's own bath."

"N-Naruto..." Yugito began again but this time it was her own words that failed her. After looking towards the Hokage for help, Yugito realized that the man had said everything he had in front of Naruto on purpose. The tiny smirk the man was trying to hide told her everything she needed to know and at that point she wouldn't have been at all surprised to learn that he had been the one to convince the owners of the inn to kick her out just so she would have no other choice than to move in with her student.

Sighing in resignation, Yugito turned her attention back towards her student. "Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? You will be seeing me enough as it is, are you sure you want to live with me as well?"

"You need a place to stay and... and it would be nice to not always come home to an empty apartment after missions and training."

Whatever animosity she may have been feeling towards the Hokage for forcing her into such a situation vanished as soon as her fellow Jinchuuriki finished speaking. As she had gotten older the feeling of loneliness became easier to deal with but she still remembered the countless times in her youth that she had dreaded returning to her empty apartment after a mission or training. Often times she would choose to sleep outdoors rather than return to her apartment and knew from the moment she found him sleeping before practice that Naruto was probably the same.

"Fine."

"Excellent!" said the Hokage, obviously pleased that his manipulations had borne fruit. "I believe that is all I wished to speak with you about, so please feel free to get yourself settled in your new place."

"Old coot." Yugito muttered, but not regretting her words at all once she noticed that the Hokage had still heard her. "Is there anywhere near your apartment that I might know of?"

"Jii-san's ramen stand is pretty close to where..." Naruto began but suddenly found himself standing not far from the ramen stand after his sensei had gripped his shoulder once again. "Stop doing that!"

"I would think that you would be happy to not have to walk all the way from the Hokage's office. I could take you back and let you walk back if you wanted, but I'd rather see where it is I'll be living from now on." Yugito mused, and as expected her words brought a brilliant smile to the blond's face even as he turned and began leading her in the direction of his... _their _apartment.

For the apartment to have two bedrooms and two baths, Yugito knew that it must have been of decent size but she never would have expected that it would take up the entire top floor of the rather run down building. She was equally shocked by the overall condition of the apartment's interior as she had not held out much hope for it upon seeing the building itself. From the moment she entered the spacious living room, it became apparent that Naruto had worked painstakingly to keep it in such good condition.

As they moved from one room to another, one of the things Yugito noticed was that while the apartment itself was well taken care of, the furniture was old and battered. So much so that she found it rather unlikely that one person, even if the person in question was Uzumaki Naruto, could have done it. She had come to the conclusion that the furniture had but in that condition when he first purchased them when she was finally shown her room. The furniture in that room was just as old and battered as everything else in the apartment but they had the obvious signs of someone working to make them presentable.

"I-It's not much..."

"It is more than enough." Yugito said with a nod of her head as she looked around her new room before moving to do the same to her bathroom. In all she was very impressed with the state of the apartment, especially when she considered the fact that it had only been occupied by a young man for the past six or so years. In the end she decided that, aside from what he ate, Naruto was extremely able when it came to looking after himself, more so than a boy his age should be.

"I wanted to ask you something about training. I know you said that I'm not supposed to practice on my own, but is it alright if it's just the meditation exercises you showed us?" Naruto asked, looked as though he expected to be yelled at for even asking.

"As long as you are _only _working to clear your mind, I see no problem with you doing so outside of practice. If it is something you are serious about, I would suggest doing so before you go to sleep each night. Not only will it help in your training, but I learned long ago that it will help in other aspects of your life as well."

"I'll try it..."

"Was there something else?" she asked once she realized that Naruto had neither relaxed or given her any sign that he was preparing to leave.

"I... I'm just glad that you decided to stay here." he muttered, his cheeks beginning to color slightly. This was something he clearly didn't enjoy.

"I think I will be as well." Yugito replied softly, only her student still had yet to make any sort of movement towards the door. "Naruto?"

"Yes, sensei?"

"Was that anything else?"

"Not really, no."

"Then are you planning on standing there all night?" she inquired, allowing herself to laugh briefly when the young blond flushed terribly before fleeing from the room, muttering an apology and a quick 'good night' as he did.

Living with anyone would have been more than what Yugito was used to, but the fact that she was now living with a twelve year old male, and a fellow Jinchuuriki, would take a lot of getting used to. But as she looked around her new room once again before turning to gaze out of the large window opposite her bed, she couldn't but feel as though her current arrangement was one she should strive to make work. After all, she and Naruto both deserved a break from the biting loneliness that came with being what they were.

()()()()()()()

The following morning found Naruto shuffling around his apartment in a sleep filled daze much like he did every morning, that is until he remembered the events of the night before and that he was no longer living alone. Once this realization washed over him, Naruto found himself not only wide awake but feeling more energized than he could ever remember, which was something that honestly would have scared when the Hokage if he had known.

His excitement was to such an extent that Naruto found himself racing towards his sensei's room without ever even considering the consequences. When he through open the door without any form of warning, he found that he was nearly ever bit as surprised to find his sensei standing there without her shirt on as she appeared to be. The two continued to stand there staring at each other, although Naruto appeared to be staring at something other than the woman's face, until Yugito finally overcame her shock and quickly turned her back on the young Genin.

"Naruto, if you do not leave this room by the time I count to five, I will..." Yugito began but found herself not needing to finish her threat as her door was already being slammed shut.

When a fully dressed and silently seething Nii Yugito exited her room, she quickly found the reason for her fury sitting at the table both blushing in a way that would put a certain Hyuuga to shame, as well as looking as though he knew his life would be ending in mere moments. This look of absolute fear only seemed to increase once he noticed his sensei's presence.

"Would you mind telling me why you decided to enter me room?" Yugito asked through clenched teeth. Already working out what she would do to him if it seemed for just one moment that the reason for his intrusion was to catch her in any state of undress.

"W-When I w-woke up I had f-forgotten that you w-were now living here and w-when I suddenly remembered I g-got so excited that I r-ran into your room w-without thinking." Naruto explained, never allowing himself to look anywhere other than a single spot on the table. "I-I... I'm really sorry."

"I will ask you this once and only once, and if you even attempt to lie to me I will remove every part of your body that could have been influencing you actions. Did you ever think, for even one brief moment, that you might be able to catch me in the state you found me in if you entered my room without warning?"

"NO!" cried Naruto, still not able to look anywhere near her but still speaking with enough conviction to at least get his sensei to calm down a little.

"Look me in the eyes and answer me."

In all honesty, Yugito very nearly laughed at the extent Naruto went to not look at her breasts as he slowly forced himself to look her in the eyes. As inexperienced as she was in any kind of relationship, she should have known that something like that would have happened at some point and was beginning to feel more upset with herself for forgetting about Naruto's presence in the apartment and not locking the door. She also found it hard blame Naruto, who was just entering the beginning of puberty, for not leaving immediately or for staring at her the way he had. After all, she had suffered through the horrors of puberty and knew all to well the effects her hormones had on her. Often times she wondered if it wasn't harder on their kind than normal children.

"I swear I didn't." Naruto whispered helplessly once he had finally managed to meet the woman's gaze. He would have never admitted it to anyone, not even Iruka or under threat of death, but it was taking every last bit of self control he had in his tiny body to not lower his gaze to the woman's chest. Sure he had created a jutsu that transformed himself in to a beautiful naked woman, but seeing himself as a woman and seeing his sensei's naked breasts... There was absolutely no comparison.

"I will believe you this one time." she sighed, realizing that his fear and dread had probably been punishment enough. Still, she was not going to let it happen again. "However, Naruto, this will_ not_ happen again. You and I may share a relationship that is beyond that of a sensei and their student, but I will not forgive you if this incident were to repeat itself. If you feel that you are incapable of simply knocking on my door and _waiting_ for me to answer, then tell me now and I will find another place to live."

"P-Please don't!" Naruto very nearly yelled, looking as though the worst possible outcome of the resent events would be her moving out. Apparently even the idea of being alone again would be more than enough incentive to do anything his sensei requested of him, even if she asked him to wear a blindfold at all times. "I promise, no matter what, I'll always knock and wait for you to answer. I... I never meant to walk in on you like that, I just wanted to see you and make sure that you were still here."

"I understand how you must feel and I know that you didn't do it on purpose. What do you say we just forget that it ever happened?" Yugito offered.

While a part of him knew that no matter what he said, he was more than likely going to remember what he had seen that morning for the rest of his life. She may have only been naked from the waist up, but it was the first time he had ever seen so much of a woman and the fact that she was easily one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen only made it that much more memorable. He felt it best if he kept that part to himself and simply agreed.

Upon seeing him nod his head, Yugito moved past the table and entered the surprisingly large kitchen before opening the refrigerator. Once she noticed only the barest of essentials, she moved on to the cabinets but quickly found that they to lacked any depth in their contents. For a brief moment she wondered how a young man who appeared to understand the need to take such good care of his surroundings could be such a fool when it came to taking care of himself. Had he truly believed that he could live his entire life on cereal, expired milk and cup ramen? Apparently the food he received from Teuchi and Ayame was the only thing keeping the child alive.

"Do you ever buy groceries?" Yugito asked, knowing full well the answer.

"No one will let me into their store, let alone sell me anything. Ayame-nee will sometimes go shopping for me but I don't want to be a burden to her. Cereal and cup ramen have some of the longest shelf life so I try to get by on that."

"I can understand, Naruto, I truly can, but you and I are going to have to start changing the way you think when it comes to taking care of yourself. Cereal is fine if it isn't loaded with sugar, but cup ramen lasts so long because of the additives they put in it and milk... Did you even realize that your milk had expired?"

"No." muttered Naruto, his face beginning to regain the crimson coloring that finally begun to fade from his earlier encounter with his sensei. Expired milk did explain some of the resent stomach pains he had been having, not to mention the frequent trips to the toilet.

"You and I were going to split the costs of living together evenly, weren't we?"

"Of course."

"Then from now on I'll be in charge of shopping for groceries and you can simply pay me back half of what I spend. Sound fair?" Yugito offered. She began to feel as though there was some hope for the young blond when he agreed readily enough. "Just so I know, is there anything that you absolutely can't stand? I'm not talking about something you'd rather not eat, but something that you would flee the village to escape."

Naruto thought about this for a moment but soon shook his head. "Nothing comes to mind."

"Good. After practice I'll go out and pick up some things. Speaking of which..." she said as she glanced around the kitchen until she found a small cloak. "It's about time for us to go. Do you want to walk or do you want a lift?"

"Like you were going to let me walk even if I chose to." Naruto muttered as he lifted himself out of his seat and closed the distance between him and his sensei. He found that the sensation of his sensei's technique was much easier to deal with when he knew it was coming.

When the pair arrived in the clearing of Team Nine's training ground, Naruto noticed that both Hinata and Sakura were already there and that the expression on the latter's face made him wonder if he was fated to anger every woman in his life that day. First he had walked in on Yugito while she was changing and now there was Sakura, who stood there looking as though she wanted nothing more than to slowly remove every bit of skin from his body before knocking him into a pile of salt.

"Naruto, would care to tell my why Ino-pig thought that I no longer cared about Sasuke-kun after the way _I _acted while _we_ were collecting our mission yesterday?" she asked sweetly, and call him what you will, Naruto recognized the tone immediately and began to worry. "You know it's funny, she told me that I had tripped Sasuke-kun as he walked past me but for the life of me I can't remember ever doing that... Oh yeah, that's because I was here training all day and _you _used your clones to make it so that we would be able to complete our mission while still training! Naruto, how could you!"

"In Naruto's defense, he's an idiot." supplied Yugito, only for some reason it didn't seem to help matters much. In fact, her comment was left largely ignored, even if everyone present agreed with her.

"I should kill you for that! What if he never speaks to me again?"

"Like he ever did before!" shouted Naruto. As soon as the words left his mouth he realized that he shouldn't have said that, and if he needed any further sign that he had screwed up big time, his sensei sighing told him all he needed to know. However, by the time he opened his mouth to apologize for what he had said, Sakura was refusing to hear any of it. To make matters worse, she appeared to be trying valiantly to hide from her team the fact that she had tears in her eyes.

While Hinata moved to her fellow kunoichi's side to see if she was okay, Yugito did the same to Naruto but for a drastically different reason. "Starting to wonder if you should have even bothered getting out of bed this morning?"

"Not helping." Naruto growled.

"Wasn't trying to." replied his sensei. "A large part of growing up is realizing when you've made a mistake and doing everything in your power to make it right. Then again, you also have to take into account whether the person hurt by your mistake means enough to you to even make setting things right worth your time. So tell me, is your Sakura-chan's forgiveness worthy of your time?"

"She isn't _my _Sakura-chan, and of course it is." whispered Naruto, making sure that both of his teammates were far enough away that they wouldn't be able to overhear the conversation he was having with their sensei.

"Then I have an idea." Yugito announced, before forming a short series of hand seals. She didn't say a word but when she knelt down and placed her left had against the ground, two small areas of grass suddenly began to glisten. They were divided so that each section was about a shoulders width apart. "Tell me, can you do a handstand?"

It wasn't until she asked that question that he realized the purpose of Yugito's jutsu and now that he had, he began looking closer at the small glistening areas, which he found were actually filled with thin, needle-like blades of grass. Still, the suddenness of everything had left Naruto so shocked that all he found himself capable of was staring from the small sections of grass to his sensei and back.

"While performing a handstand, I want you to channel just enough of your chakra into your hands to keep yourself on top of the needles. This will act as your training for today as it works as both a chakra control exercise and as a means to help you learn clear your mind." Yugito ordered, but when Naruto sent her a doubtful look, she decided to better explain things. "As we discussed yesterday, a person will subconsciously draw upon hidden potential in times of emotional stress. While in times of battle this can be invaluable, but like your current situation there are also times when it is more of a hindrance. While you wish to only use what is necessary, your fear and worry of having your hands turned into pincushions by those blades leaves you subconsciously expelling far more chakra than is needed."

"What's so bad about that?"

"Naruto, while your chakra reserves are, to put it bluntly, beyond impressive, they are still finite and to constantly expel far more chakra than is needed with drain even your reserves faster than you can imagine. Especially when you consider the fact that this is a punishment as much as it is a form of training, and as such you will not be allowed to stop any time soon. Even if your reserves begin to run low, I will still force you to continue."

Finally a look of understanding appeared on the face of the young Jinchuuriki. "And clearing my mind eliminates my fear and worry and stops me from subconsciously drawing on more than is necessary. But how does this help me with Sakura-chan?"

"Simple. Just tell her that you aren't going to stop until she forgives you." Yugito said in a tone of voice that most used to discuss the weather. "And in the off chance she forgives you sooner rather than later, you are to continue as it will then become a punishment from me for disrupting my practice with your inability to think before you speak."

Yugito watched as her pupil sighed heavily before channeling chakra into his hands and pressing his now chakra infused hands against the blades of grass. Even as the blond began to slowly lift his legs into the air, the Jounin noted that the boy was already producing far too much chakra and by the look of frustration on his face it was obvious that he knew it as well. Taking into account the child's reserves and the amount he was currently using, logic would dictate that he would fall onto the blades in less than an hour.

After checking over her student one last time to make sure that everything would be fine if she turned her attention elsewhere, Yugito did just that as she turned and began making her way over to the other members other team. She hadn't failed to notice that both Hinata and Sakura were watching the blond, obviously confused by his actions.

"What is the idiot doing now?" inquired Sakura, her slightly puffy eyes narrowing as she continued to glare at her teammate.

"Trying to earn your forgiveness." Yugito answered, trying to act as though the entire thing hadn't been her idea. Although she found that she loved to tease her fellow Jinchuuriki, even she knew when it was called for and when the baka truly needed help.

"By doing handstands?" Sakura responded incredulously.

"By doing handstands over thousands of tiny blades that will tear through his hands the moment his concentration wavers or when he simply runs out of chakra. In either case, he's not going to stop until you forgive him." she countered easily, taking at least some small amount of enjoyment from the horrified expression on both of her students' faces.

Almost at once the pink-haired kunoichi marched over to her only male teammate, all the while muttering insults towards said male. Even as she stood by his side, screaming at him that what he was doing was foolish, Hinata moved slightly closer to her sensei, eyeing her scrupulously.

"S-Sensei, how large w-was your role in all of t-this?"

"What ever do you mean, Hin-a-ta-chan?" Yugito whispered slowly. Trying, and failing, to sound completely innocent, and in the process telling Hinata all she needed to know about whose idea it was to have Naruto take such drastic measures to gain Sakura's forgiveness.

"H-He w-will be alright, w-won't he?" Hinata wondered aloud, never taking her eyes off the object of her fantasies, whether she would admit it or not.

"Your Naruto-kun will be fine." Yugito said quietly, only to continue when she noticed that, like the others on her team, Hinata was preparing to announce that Naruto wasn't hers. The young Jounin couldn't help but wonder if any of the other sensei found so much fun in teasing their students the way she did hers. "Say what you will, Hinata, but I can tell you with the utmost certainty that our little Naruto-kun has begun to notice you. I won't attempt to order you into this, Hinata, but right now Naruto could probably use some advice from someone who has been learning to channel their chakra into their hands for many years. If only we had someone like that on our team."

With that Yugito turned and began making her way back towards Sakura and Naruto before finally pulling the pink-haired kunoichi away from the blond before she lost her temper once again and attempted to physically force Naruto to end his current, and somewhat dangerous, training. Which was something Yugito definitely couldn't allow to happen, at least not until she found out whether or not Hinata was willing to instigate a conversation with the Genin she appeared to have such feelings for.

Unbeknownst to Hinata, Yugito had quickly explained the situation to Sakura and the pair were standing just beyond the tree line watching her struggle against herself. It would seem as though Sakura was more than willing to ignore what Naruto had done to her, and the ridiculous training he was putting himself through, if it meant that she could watch the romantic tragedy that was Hyuuga Hinata and Uzumaki Naruto. And that is exactly what it appeared to be as the Hyuuga heiress continued to tap her index fingers together nervously while attempting to hide the fact that she was sneaking more than her fair share of looks towards her teammate.

Finally the young woman began to make her way towards the young blond, but even after doing so she couldn't seem to find the courage to announce her presence. Once again this was taken out of her hands as _someone _threw a small rock at the Jinchuuriki from just outside the clearing, causing him to look up only to find Hinata standing in front of him.

"H-Hey, Hinata-chan!" Naruto hissed, his face flushed from exertion.

"N-Naruto-kun, p-pardon me for interrupting but y-you should t-try to close your eyes a-and t-take a few deep b-breathes." Hinata all but whispered, only to have Naruto once again twist his neck to look at her. She felt very close to fainting when the young blond offered her a crooked smile of sorts.

"I suppose you would know best." he replied before doing as she had instructed.

"H-How do you m-mean?"

"During our training yesterday, sensei told me a lot about your Byakugan and the style of fighting your clan created to maximize it's effectiveness in battle." Naruto told her, his voice already becoming far less strained than it had been only moments before. "I had no idea your clan had such amazing abilities, Hinata-chan. I bet if you wanted to, you could have easily kicked Sasuke-teme's ass and become Rookie of the Year."

She couldn't believe it. Not only had Naruto been placed on her team, something that left her feeling as though she would welcome death if it came for her mere moments later, but he had even gone so far as to tell her that she could have become Rookie of the Year is she wanted to. When the heat in her face continued to rise to familiar, and greatly feared, levels, Hinata quickly sat down on her knees in front of her teammate. After all, it was much easier to hide the fact that she was terribly close to fainting if she was sitting down and in the likely situation that she should faint, so long as Naruto kept his eyes closed, he would simply think that she had either fallen silent or wandered away.

"I-I'm not that p-proficient at it thought."

"How you are right now doesn't really matter, does it?" he asked. "I mean, so long as you know the basics you can train until there is no one better. That's why it's called training, Hinata-chan, it's supposed to help you become stronger."

"B-But I c-can't! W-What if I-I m-messed up or l-lost c-control? I-I c-could seriously hurt m-my s-sparing partner." Hinata stuttered terribly, this time more out of fear than the fact that she was sitting so close to Naruto while having a conversation with him.

"Anyone can screw up during a spar and harm the person they are sparing with, Hinata-chan. Iruka-sensei used to tell us that all the time, and why he always told us to focus completely on our spar so that it doesn't happen because we weren't thinking clearly." Naruto replied, but when he suddenly remembered something that Yugito had told him the day before, he continued. "Yesterday Yugito-sensei told me something that I think could help you. She said, 'Jinchuuriki are not the only ones in this world who fear losing control and harming those around them, keep that in mind.'"

Upon hearing the word Jinchuuriki, Hinata found herself remembering what it was that her crush held inside of him, what he was training to draw out and use for the betterment of their village. It was more than enough to put her problems into perspective, although she doubted that it had been Naruto's intention. There she was worrying about potentially crippling a person or destroying one of their tenketsu, while her teammate struggled to control the very same power that took their Yondaime Hokage's life and Naruto's own body to stop... The two were incomparable.

"She told me this after telling me about your Juuken, after telling me that you fear using it against a sparing partner because of the ever present chance that you could hurt them. I can understand that fear, Hinata-chan, more than most, but I think you're missing the most obvious solutions."

"A-And those w-would be?" Hinata wondered, while beginning to wonder just how she felt about her sensei having such a conversation with Naruto. If things didn't work out for the best, Hinata wondered exactly how she should confront her sensei.

"First and foremost, find a sparing partner that is willing to work with you knowing full well the risks, and who is able to take your attacks and not suffer any longterm effects. The second solution is one that you've already begun. Learning medical jutsus. If you learn enough of them and become proficient enough a them, you should have no trouble healing any and all injuries you might inflict."

"B-But where w-would I find a p-person like that?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe right in front of you?" Naruto teased, laughing softly when he found that he could almost hear the blood vessels bursting in the face of the Hyuuga. "I've been told by Yugito-sensei how dangerous your Juuken can be and I have the utmost respect for it so please don't take this the wrong way, Hinata-chan, but because of what I am, I doubt there is anything you could do to me that wouldn't heal."

"W-What if..." Hinata began, only to fall silent when the blond sighed heavily before lifting himself off of his hands and settling into a squatting position directly across from her. Only then did he finally open his eyes and only then could Hinata see the untold amounts of pain and anguish shinning in them.

"Hinata-chan, this may be very hard for someone like you to believe, but being what I am, and because of how most of this village sees me, there were countless times when I was attacked as a child. Usually it was by a drunk villager who wanted to finish what he believed the Yondaime had started but there were times when I was hunted down by entire mobs of people, usually this was reserved for October 10th, my birthday. I'll spare you the details, mostly because I can't seem to bring myself to tell them to someone like you, but needless to say I have survived where even adult shinobi would have died and it mostly comes down to Kyuubi's presence within me."

Yugito had told her a small amount of what had happened in her past and what she feared had happened in Naruto's, but hearing about it from an outside source was nothing compared to how it felt to have Naruto himself telling her that he had been beaten countless times as a child. Still, a part of Hinata's mind wouldn't let go of something he had repeated only twice during his explanation.

"W-What do you m-mean, s-someone like m-me?"

Almost at once the young Genin retook his position over the blades, if for no other reason than to escape having to look into Hinata's eyes as he spoke. "Y-You're a very kind and gentle person and you always seem to find the best in people. I... I didn't want you to begin doubting the villagers or possibly changing who you are. I thought that if I told you everything that had happened to me, that you might become something other than what you are right now, and I couldn't live with myself if I did that. This village needs people like you or there is little reason for people like me to want to protect this village despite what has happened to us. H-Hinata-chan, you and Sakura-chan are the only people in this village our age that know the truth about what I am, about what sensei is, and you believed in us when few others have. That alone makes you both some of the most precious people in my life."

From their positions hidden among the trees, Yugito and Sakura silently listened to the young Jinchuuriki's words and watched the effect they had on the Hyuuga heiress. Both had hoped for something to happen along those lines but never in all her life had Sakura expected Naruto of all people to be the one to help Hinata by using nothing more than words. After all, Naruto was rather well known for speaking without thinking, as her own experiences with the blond earlier that morning had proven quite nicely.

In the end, however, Sakura could only bring herself to sigh heavily before looking towards her sensei. "How am I supposed to stay angry at him after he says something like that?"

"What I want to know is how Hinata resisted the urge to kiss him after he said something like that." countered Yugito and Sakura found herself agreeing. If she had harbored the same kinds of feelings for the blond that Hinata did, she probably would have attempted to suffocate him with her mouth. "It may have been wishful thinking on my part, but wasn't she supposed to confess her undying love for him only for him to realize that he has always secretly loved her?"

"Sensei, I think you and I need to stop reading trashy romance novels." Sakura sighed, all but cursing Ino for getting her addicted to them all those years ago. While other children were reading stories directed towards their age group, Sakura had been secretly reading from the stash of romance novels Ino had _borrowed_ from her kaa-san.

"Probably, but for now we need to collect the love birds and go complete our mission. I want to give the Hokage time to get over what Naruto's clones did on the last one before attempting to use them again." Yugito stated, her look told her pupil all she needed to know about how she felt about having to accompany them as they completed their mission.

With that the pair left the confines of the cluster of trees and began making their way towards a still brilliantly blush Hinata and a young blond who appeared to be trying his damnedest to keep his own under control. As the pair drew closer, Yugito was at least pleased to note that with the Hyuuga heiress' help, Naruto had been able to make some impressive strides in clearing his mind, if the amount of chakra he was currently expelling told her anything. Of course she was forced to admit that the young male was probably so focused on keeping himself from blushing that he wasn't even aware of what was happening around him, even if he was currently holding himself on top countless blades of grass that were no less dangerous than the blade of a kunai or shuriken.

"Naruto, that's enough for now." Yugito stated, and at once Naruto brought his legs forward and pushed himself onto his feet. While agility hadn't appeared to be much of a problem with her two female students, Naruto might have even been at a higher level than them. "Because of someone, who shall remain nameless, I'm afraid that Team Nine will have to complete their missions without the aid of clones for the time being. I would also like to add that since I cannot express how much I loath D-rank missions, the person responsible had better do nothing to upset me."

Despite the fact that the person had been left _unnamed_, Naruto felt a shiver of fear race up his spine as he nervously scratched the back of his head. Not that Hinata or Sakura could blame him, not with the way their sensei was currently looking at the blond. Nor could they blame him for all but running out of the clearing before turning in the direction of the administrative building. He was already out of sight before the other members of his team had even begun to move.

"It's almost as if he knew that I was referring to him." Yugito said while gently tapping her index finger against her full lips. When her finger suddenly paused, the left corner of her mouth began to turn upwards as a small smirk suddenly formed.

The smirk never faded, even as Yugito began to lead her fellow kunoichi out of the clearing before turning in the same direction that Naruto had fled in. In most cases Yugito would have simply used Shunshin no Jutsu(Body Flicker Technique) to take her and her team from the training ground but whether or not she would admit it to her team, a rather large part of her being wanted to postpone their coming mission for as long as possible.

"Y-You s-shouldn't tease him so m-much, Yugito-sensei." admonished Hinata, even as she and Sakura followed their sensei through the streets of Konoha. The fact that it had been Hinata of all people that had objected to the powerful woman's actions was not lost on either her teammate or sensei. It was such a strange occurrence because Hinata would have simply bitten down on her bottom lip to keep those words confined as mere thoughts only a few days previous. Although it was apparent that Hinata still worried as to her sensei reaction if her tapping her fingers together told them anything.

Rather than being up upset, Yugito actually offered her young student one of her rare true smiles. One that was only enjoyed by her student for a short while before it slowly shifted into a now familiar smirk. "You are very sweet to worry about your little boyfriends feelings, Hinata-chan."

"S-Sensei..."

"I honestly can't help it." Yugito sighed, only to continued when her team began looking back at her as if they doubted that she had even tried to contain herself. "Since the moment I collapsed outside of this village's gates, countless aspects of my life have changed beyond anything I thought possible, and one of the most drastic changes in my life has been Naruto. While I am not certain as to the role I play in his makeshift family, he has become my touto(little brother), whether it is appropriate or not, and in most cases I find myself teasing him before I can stop myself."

"What's wrong with you and Naruto thinking of the each other as family?" Sakura asked, unknowingly voicing the very same question that was racing throughout Hinata's mind as well. From what they saw when observing Konoha's shinobi, there were numerous examples that fit the same type as the one their sensei was questioning the appropriateness of.

"I am his sensei and he is my student. I am still uncertain as to how certain things are done here in Konoha, but in Kumo the relationship between sensei and pupil is one where personal feelings have no place. Most of the conversations we have had would also be deemed inappropriate and more likely than not I would have been punished and reassigned."

"B-But why w-would they..." Hinata began but quickly fell silent as her sensei opened her mouth to continue.

"It is done so that a person would not hesitate if the time came and they found themselves forced to fight against their own pupil or sensei. The fact that I have allowed myself to get involved with each of you on an emotional level would make me a failure as a sensei if I were still in Kumo."

"A-All the m-more reason to be t-thankful t-that you are a s-shinobi of K-Konoha, not K-Kumo. I... I w-would not w-want such a c-cold relationship w-with my s-sensei, e-especially since m-my sensei is y-you." Hinata said, and even with her usual stutter, her words touched her sensei more than the young Hyuuga could have possibly imagined. She may have realized something as the small smile her usually expressionless sensei gave her was not exactly common as it did not shift into a smirk.

"I... I don't think I could handle being a shinobi if there weren't people like you and Naruto around to make everything less serious." Sakura added softly, earning her understanding looks from the young Hyuuga heiress. "I'd never admit it to the idiot, but there were times in the academy when I wondered whether or not I would succeed as a shinobi since I was from a civilian family. Those days I always seemed to look towards Naruto to make me feel better, whether he knew it or not. Seeing him always smiling or playing pranks always seemed to take the edge off my thoughts. Of course I know now that not all of those smiles were real and that Naruto was nothing like what he seemed."

By then the administrative building had come into view but it did little to change the topic of their conversation. In fact, Yugito would have been more than willing to simply stand outside and further postpone their mission if it meant finishing their conversation.

"I'm glad you have both realized that there is more to Naruto than the happy-go-lucky fool he presented himself to be while in the academy. You are both incredibly smart young woman so the reason why he chose to do this should not take much thought to figure out. However, the only thing keeping him from hiding behind his mask once again is the fact that I have threatened him, so I need to know which of the two Narutos you prefer as it may affect his choices in life if he were to find out."

"I... I-I've been w-watching Naruto-kun f-for quite a w-while, so I always knew t-that t-there was m-more to him than m-meets the eye." Hinata admitted, even as her cheeks began to burn brilliantly at her little confession. "M-My feelings f-for him have n-not changed, and I-I only w-want him to feel c-comfortable enough to s-show m-me his true e-emotions."

"While my feelings for Naruto aren't exactly the same as Hinata's." Sakura began, pausing only slightly to send her teammate a teasing smile. "But I find myself feeling torn. A part of me feels almost upset, as though I've been lied to for all these years, but another part feels almost relieved that Naruto is capable of feeling the same anger and jealousy as the rest of us. This will have more meaning considering what he is, but knowing this, it almost makes him seem more... human. I always saw him struggling with everything, but then to see him always smiling despite failing, I couldn't help but wonder how serious he was about being a shinobi. It almost made me question whether or not I would be able to count on him later on."

"And now?" Yugito asked calmly, not exactly sure was to what she should do if Sakura truly felt as though she couldn't count on Naruto to be there for her when she needed him. Trust was everything in their line of work and if she couldn't trust her own teammate, someone she had known close to her entire life, then where did that leave her team?

"It's different. He's different. Hell, _I'm _different. I hate myself for ever having thought this after learning the truth, but I used to think that the reason why he misbehaved all the time was because he wasn't raised right, because he had no parents. I was almost envious of the fact that he could do whatever he wanted and there would be no one to punish him when he got home. I... I had no idea how painful his life had been." This time Sakura paused to roughly wipe away the few stray tears that were stinging her eyes. She even offered Hinata a quivering smile when the young woman stepped towards her and placed a comforting hand on her arm. "I was wrong about Naruto. If the time came and I needed to choose only one person from our year in the academy to trust with my life or the lives of those closest to me, I would choose Naruto in a heartbeat. If either of you tell him this I swear I'll kill you but lately... lately Naruto's been almost as cool as Sasuke-kun. But don't worry, Hinata, that idiot is all yours."

At once the Hyuuga heiress removed her hand from the arm of her teammate and ducked her head in a lame attempt to hide the fierce blush that they all knew was there. Even as her teammate and sensei laughed at her discomfort as they entered the administrative building and began walking down the main hallway to the room where they would surly find their Hokage, Hinata found that she could do little more than follow behind them. As much as she wanted to deny it, she had almost felt worried throughout Sakura's little speech that perhaps the pink-haired kunoichi harbored far greater feelings for the blond than she had led others to believe. A wave of relief quickly washed over her when Sakura announced that Naruto was all hers, that she had no intentions of trying to steal him from her, not that Naruto was exactly hers to begin with...

When they finally entered the large meeting room at the end of the long hallway, the female members of Team Nine found their only male teammate having what appeared to be a rather pleasant conversation with the Hokage and the man next to him, who Hinata and Sakura recognized as their former academy instructor, Umino Iruka. All around the room there were a few stray shinobi but it was clear by the lack of clutter on the desk and the absence of any great number of shinobi that most had already come to collect their mission.

"Yugito, I'm pleased to see that you and your team have finally chosen to grace this hall with your presence." announced the elderly Hokage, and while most would be led to believe that this was said because of their late arrival, Yugito knew that it was because it was only the second time they have even gone themselves to collect their mission.

"I still contest that my time, our time would be better spent training, and not doing some pointless tasks." Yugito muttered, but it was easily loud enough to be heard in all four corners of the hall. While some seemed to greatly disapprove of the way she was speaking to their Hokage, said man merely smiled back at her with his pipe hanging from his lips.

"Then perhaps you will be pleased to know that the 'pointless tasks', as you call them, have already been completed by the other Genin teams. In fact, there is only one mission available to a team of your experience and it is rarely offered."

"I suppose we have little choice." Yugito sighed before walking towards the Sandaime Hokage and holding out her hand.


	4. Chapter 4

Please read the notice at the end of this chapter.

Chapter 4.

Umino Iruka was simply amazed at how alike Naruto and his sensei appeared to be. The only difference, aside from the blatantly obvious ones, was the fact that Nii Yugito was a battle proven shinobi of unquestionable power and ability, while Uzumaki Naruto was a loud mouth Genin with little more to show for his efforts in the academy than one ninjutsu, and Iruka couldn't even bring himself to count that one since it hadn't even been learned in the academy. Still, the beauty before him could understand Naruto's life in away few others could, himself included, and from what he had seen of Naruto thus far, Yugito had already begun to work wonders on a child most thought would amount to nothing as a shinobi. Even those that saw a great deal of potential in the Jinchuuriki were amazed at how quickly Yugito had managed to change him.

While Iruka continued to look over the female Jounin, the Hokage found himself handing said woman a rather battered scroll from underneath the table. "This is a standing mission with an old friend of mine, and I need not tell you what will happen if the actions during your teams last mission are repeated."

"It will not happen again." Yugito replied, her cat-like eyes narrowing dangerously as she turned her attention towards a certain blond. A blond who, by the fact that he appeared to be looking for any way to escape his sensei's stare, understood the unspoken threat with little effort. "By your leave, Hokage-sama."

Once the Hokage nodded his head, Yugito bowed slightly before turning and exiting the room without another word, leaving her team to follow behind her. Only when they had finally exited the administrative building altogether did she finally slow her hurried pace and turn her attention to the mission scroll she had been given by the Hokage.

After reading the scroll, Yugito sighed heavily.

"I-It's not a bad one, is it?" Naruto asked, taking his sensei sighing as a sign that his actions had forced them to take on a mission that would result in more near torturous training methods.

"Not bad considering some of the missions our clones have been forced to complete, but the man we are working for is one that is known even in Kumo. He is a very famous blacksmith that appeared in Konoha not long after the Sandaime took the title of Hokage, and some say that he was asked to join this village by the Hokage himself. As a blacksmith he is without equal and as a close friend of the Hokage's he is equally powerful politically, needles to say that he is a very influential person and we must act accordingly. Naruto?"

"Yes, sensei?" inquired the blond, his voice making it seem as though he didn't already know where the conversation was heading.

"Behave yourself." she ordered simply, but no further words were needed as the young Jinchuuriki's shoulders slumped pitifully.

"Yes, sensei."

Whatever they had been expecting in terms of what such the highly regarded man's shop would look like, it had not been the rather simple and run down building they were currently standing in front of. If modesty had a physical definition, it would be the building before them. From the simple sign hanging over the open doorway to the complete lack of anything in the display windows other than kunai and shuriken, nothing about the building would have led them to assume that it was run by a man who most believed that the Hokage himself had asked to join their village.

Even the members of Team Nine who had been secretly hoping that the outside was just to look inconspicuous, Naruto, found the inside of the shop rather disappointing. While the variety of such beautifully made weapons displayed were great, the way that they were being displayed seemed almost depressing in its simplicity. Even the elderly man standing behind the counter appeared disinterested with his surroundings as Naruto wasn't the only member of Team Nine that believed that the man was asleep.

After taking a closer look at the elderly man, Naruto found himself thinking that he was far more interesting than the shop itself. While the top of his head was completely bald, the old man had long bushy eyebrows and an even longer beard, both of which were such a stark white that Naruto found himself wondering if the man wasn't older than the Hokage by a good number of years. The man's attire appeared to be nothing more than a white kosode, a black kimono and hakama, and a white obi sash but it still would have seemed out-of-place if he had been out walking among the rest of Konoha's villagers. But the most interesting thing about the man had to be the number of long, thin scars that covered the man's head, and the impressive pair that formed an 'X' near the center of the man's forehead.

Just as Naruto was about to ask his sensei if they hadn't entered the wrong shop by mistake, a young woman not much older than himself entered the shop. The first thought that entered Naruto's mind upon seeing her was that he found her to be extremely cute. For the most part she was dressed in an outfit common among shinobi, except her pink shirt differed from anything Naruto had ever seen, but if he was forced to make a guess he would say that it was of the same origin as Sakura's dress. He found himself drawn, however, to the fact that her hair was drawn up into identical buns, giving her the illusion of having panda ears.

The young woman appeared a bit surprised at first to see them standing there but recovered quickly and even went so far as to offer them each a small smile before she moved further into the shop, pausing only briefly to grab a few new sets of kunai and shuriken before placing them on the counter along with their cost. It was obvious by the way she moved around the shop that she was a frequent visitor.

"You haven't been coming around very often as of late, Tenten-kun. You haven't found another blacksmith, have you?" inquired the elderly man, he spoke in a voice that only reaffirmed in Naruto's mind that the man was indeed far older than even the Hokage.

The girl, Tenten, laughed happily while shaking her head. "As if there is a blacksmith in this world more talented than you, Ookami-sama. Besides, in the off chance I did find one, you know you're the only one I trust to make my weapons!"

"I knew there was a reason why you were my favorite customer!" he announced, even as he handed the young woman her change and the sets of kunai and shuriken she had purchased. Despite the fact that his eyes never seemed opened, the elderly man followed the young woman as she exited the shop before turning his attention to Team Nine. "Hizuren has sent word that your team will be helping me around the shop for their mission. I have also been told about your feelings for missions of this rank and I have decided that you may leave your students in my hands, Yugito-kun."

"Are you sure, Ookami-sama? It is true that I dislike them, but it isn't as though it will kill me to stand watch over my team as they complete their assigned mission." Yugito asked, feeling torn between simply agreeing and running from the shop as if Kyuubi itself were after her and not wanting to force more work on the elderly, and greatly respected, man. The fact that he referred to the Hokage by his first name was not lost on any of Team Nine's members.

"Go, child." Ookami pressed. "There is no need for you to waste your time and I am not so old that I would be unable to help them if they need it."

Even as she nodded her head, Yugito turned and looked at her team. "Sakura, Hinata, make sure Naruto behaves himself. Naruto... just don't destroy anything."

Before Naruto was even given a chance to say anything in his own defense, Yugito smirked and quickly disappeared from the small shop.

"So your names are Sakura, Hinata, and Naruto?" inquire Ookami as he pointed to each one in turn. When they nodded, although Naruto did so only after he finished glaring at the spot his sensei had recently vacated, he continued. "To begin I would like for the two young ladies to managed the front, meaning I'd like for you to deal with customers and polish the weapons on display. Naruto, you will be working along side me with the forge. After a while I will rotate until all three of you have had a chance to work the forge. Is that agreeable?"

_As if we could object anyway. _Naruto thought even as he followed the elderly man through a single door behind the counter that led into a long hallway.

"Would I be correct in assuming that you are none other than Uzumaki Naruto?" Ookami asked, never once turning his attention away from the door at the far end of the passageway.

"I am." answered Naruto, wondering if this man was like the so many others in the village that saw him as nothing more than Kyuubi reborn. In the back of his mind Naruto knew that it wasn't true. After all, he was supposed to be friends with the Hokage.

"Hizuren speaks very highly of you, and I myself rather enjoyed the recent addition you made to the Hokage Monument." Ookami said, chuckling gently as he reached up and began running his willowy fingers through his long beard.

"Iruka-sensei made me clean the entire monument after that prank." Naruto muttered, at least pleased that his pranks were enjoyed by someone other than himself.

"Our messes are our own to clean."

"But I used a water-soluble paint! It would have washed right off the next time it rained!"

Again Ookami began to chuckle softly even as they finally reached the door. Without pause the elderly man opened the door and immediately Naruto felt a wave of heated air wash over him. It amazed him that any man, especially one around Ookami's age, could work in such conditions for any prolonged amount of time. The source of the rooms heat was rather obvious as in the center of the room there was a large round... Naruto wasn't exactly sure what it was called but it was nearly full of heated coals.

"For the time being you will control the bellows." Ookami announced, motioning towards a strange pump of sorts. "Maintaining a steady rhythm is vitally important as an erratic rhythm will allow the coals to superheat one moment and cool the next; inconsistency in the heat equal inconsistency in the metal. It can be strenuous work but it is needed if I am to create weapons the shinobi of this village require. Can you handle this?"

"Leave it to me, Jii-chan!" Naruto very nearly shouted at he took hold of the bellows and moved to the spot Ookami showed him.

After watching the Genin squeeze the bellows closed a few times, Ookami nodded and set to work creating the very weapons that had made him so well known in the world of shinobi. As he worked, the elderly man continued to question Naruto about certain aspects of his life, such as his relationship with the Hokage and the other members of his team, and the young man answered with complete honesty as his mind was mostly focused on his task at hand and left him unable to create any sort of believable lie. For his part, Naruto was just grateful that the opening in the forge where he needed to point the bellows was in such a position that he was still able to watch the master blacksmith as he worked.

It was amazing.

The old man continued to work and heat the metal repeatedly until it began to take on the vague appearance of a weapon. The part of it all that amazing the young Jinchuuriki the most was the fact that the elderly man took no precautions in protecting his hands from the heat of the forge or the glowing metal itself. After noticing his look, Ookami explained that he had been taught as an apprentice to channel his chakra into his hands to protect them. This allowed him to perform far more detailed works than an ordinary blacksmith.

Finally, far too soon if you asked Naruto, Ookami called for Sakura to take Naruto's place in controlling the bellows while he took hers at the front of the store. After each were explained what they needed to do by the other, they set to work and before long it was Hinata's turn to work the bellows while Sakura joined Naruto in running the front of the store. Neither was certain as to how long they had been working with Ookami, but even as Hinata rejoined them they continued to discuss what they had observed and the young Hyuuga seemed more than willing to join them in their conversation.

It was only after Ookami reappeared in the front of the shop that Naruto happened to glance out the window and noticed that they had spent nearly the entire day working in the shop and that none of them had complained in the slightest. In fact, if it came down to it, Naruto wouldn't have even blinked an eye if he had been told that he had to pay Ookami for his right to work in the shop.

"All three of you worked tirelessly and without complaint, and because of this dedication I, we, have been able to form the foundation for a set of beautiful weapons." Ookami announced, and as he watched his words sink in, he could almost see the three Genin begin to swell with pride. "Now then, Hizuren and I have long since moved beyond monetary payments for those who are selected for this mission. My final question to each of you is, in what form would you liked to receive payment?"

"I... I don't understand." admitted Naruto, feeling slightly better about this fact when he glanced towards his teammates and noticed that neither of them seemed to understand either. It was at that moment when their sensei suddenly arrived in a thick cloud of smoke.

"What he means, Naruto, is that he and the Hokage have come to an understanding. For those he feels have earned it, he allows them to select a weapon in place of a monetary payment. It is quite an honor." Yugito explained, smiling ever so slightly when her team turned their attention back towards the elderly man and began staring at him in shock. She honestly couldn't blame them as the payment for a D-rank mission was not nearly enough to afford one of Ookami's weapons, aside from the very basic set of kunai and shuriken.

"I... I don't know what to pick." whispered Naruto, swaying slightly as he looked around the shop while trying to see every weapon available at the same time.

"For you, I would select something along the lines of a katana, or a wakizashi." Yugito told him. "Wind is the strongest offensive power for close to mid-range fights. If used in conjunction with certain weapons, it can increase the cutting power of said weapon drastically and in a battle between two shinobi of the same level who are using bladed weapons, the one with the sharpest edge wins."

"W-Which w-would best suit m-me?" Hinata asked, while Sakura looked as though she had been close to asking that question herself.

"When factoring in your affinity, I'd say any metal weapon that can channel chakra would work for you as a mere glancing blow can leave the section of the body you struck paralyzed for a short while. Because you specialize in taijutsu and when factoring in you personality, I believe a staff would suit you will. Not only will it give you a far greater range but it can also be used to subdue your opponents without causing fatal injuries." Yugito explained, and for a brief moment she could have sworn that a look of excitement flashed in her students eyes.

In any case, Hinata soon followed Naruto's example and began searching through the wide selection of weapons Ookami had to offer, keeping her sensei's words at the forefront of her mind as she did.

"Sakura, your element is very diverse as it can be used to create shields as well as powerful jets of water. This diversity also has it's drawbacks as it is not an element that is usually channeled into or through anything." Yugito said truthfully, but quickly raised her hands to forestall whatever Sakura had been about to say. "While this leaves you in a different position than Hinata or Naruto, it does not necessarily have to be a bad thing. Where they are searching for a weapon that they will be able to channel their chakra type into, as well as one that will suit their personality, you have been given a clean slate. You are free to choose whatever weapon appeals to you the most."

This seemed to sate the young woman's irritation and before long she too was searching through the seemingly endless variety of weapons.

Fearing that they might have made the wrong choice, Naruto, Hinata and Sakura faltered again and again as they moved to approach Ookami with their choice. Because of this it took the three far longer than it probably should have but once they finally whispered their selection into the ear of the old man, none of them could help but smile, nor would they tell their sensei or each other what weapon they had finally selected. When Yugito realized that none of her students were going to tell her, the older Jinchuuriki began to pout slightly.

"I will begin working on your weapons immediately. Considering what was selected, and if everything progresses smoothly, everything should be ready in a few days time." Ookami told them, his fingers running through his beard as he did so. Little did the Genin members of Team Nine realize that the elderly blacksmith was currently thinking of ways to... _improve _on their choices.

"Then we will impose on you no longer." Yugito said before bowing slightly and leading her team from the shop. Once outside Yugito turned towards her team and couldn't help but note that, while they all appeared to be covered in soot, they all looked extremely pleased with themselves. A small part of her felt that if all D-ranked missions had been like the one they had just completed, she might not have minded them nearly as much. "Considering the length of the mission, I will leave it up to you whether or not you wish to train this evening. I will be waiting for those that choose to."

With that their sensei turned and before her foot fell after taking her first step, the cat-eyed Jounin appeared to blur out of existence. The fact that she hadn't disappeared in a vortex of spiraling leaves or a thick cloud of smoke told her students that their sensei hadn't used her usual Shunshin no Jutsu. The technique she had just used left behind no evidence that their sensei had even been standing there a moment ago, save for their memories.

"I really hope Yugito-sensei teaches us some of the techniques she keeps using to disappear like that." Naruto wondered aloud, only to glance towards his teammates and find them nodding in agreement. Like his sensei before him, Naruto noticed that, while each of the young kunoichi looked as though they could do with a long, hot shower, neither of them appeared overly tired. "So, do we call it a day or do we see what Yugito-sensei has in mind in terms of training?"

"I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm going to train." Sakura announced, finally tearing her eyes away from the spot her sensei had recently vacated and looking towards her team. "Unlike some of us, Hinata and I weren't able to train this morning."

"If you'd like, I could suggest to sensei that you and Hinata-chan be given the same type of training." Naruto countered innocently, smirking ever so slightly when both of his teammates cringed at the very thought. Neither of them had the blond's healing factor and if they happened to fall face first onto those blades... Well, they could only pray that Konoha's medical staff would be able to fix them.

"W-We s-shouldn't keep sensei w-waiting." Hinata suggested, before quickly falling into stride with her teammates as they began making their way towards the place where they all knew their sensei would be waiting.

The short journey was done in relative silence and when they finally arrived they found the cat-eyed Jounin waiting patiently for them while leaning against one of the three logs at the far side of the clearing. She gave no indication that she was even aware of their presence even when they closed the distance between them and stood only a few meters in front of her. That is, until she spoke.

"Begin stretching."

The small ground of Genin knew enough about their sensei not to question her orders but it was certainly not what they had been expecting. After all, aside from running up and down trees and walking across the surface of the lake, they had yet to do anything truly physical. Obviously that was about to change.

It was only after all three Genin finished their stretching that Yugito opened her crimson eyes, her feline-like pupils visibly dilating as the setting sun had all but completely disappeared behind the wester forests surrounding their village. After looking at each of her students in turn, the ex-Kumo shinobi spoke. "You may have noticed that since this team was formed, I've never asked any of you to work on taijutsu. The reason for this being that I have been using our practices to gauge both your rate of improvement and willingness to work in chakra control, which can be the most frustrating aspect of a shinobi's training as it can quickly become repetitive. The ninjutsu I taught you was not some reward, but was a way for me to judge how far you have each advanced. After seeing how quickly you, Sakura and Hinata, mastered Water Walking and how you, Naruto, handled this mornings training, I believe that each of you have a firm grasp on chakra control, and because of this ninjutsu."

"So we're going to start working on taijutsu?" assumed Naruto, who, like the others, had found it to be the only logical choice considering his sensei words. As excited as he was to begin any form of training, Naruto found that he was almost giddy at the prospect of witnessing Hinata's kekkei genkai and her family's Juuken.

"We are." Yugito answered, taking note of her students varying reactions. Naruto, as one would expect, looked mere moments away from literally jumping up and down in his excitement, while Sakura simply looked interested. Hinata, however, had almost immediately begun to move behind her teammates in an attempt to hide herself, tapping her index fingers nervously as she did so. "As you are the only one with any sort of formal training outside of what was taught in the academy, Hinata, you will be going first."

It was almost comical the way Sakura and Naruto looked to their sides only to find their shy teammate missing. It wasn't until the two stepped further apart that they finally found her, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth and her face nearly the same color as their sensei's eyes. When she made no move to step out from behind her teammates, Naruto took it upon himself to... _help _her along. With a gentleness that greatly surprised both Sakura and Hinata herself, Naruto placed a hand on the Hyuuga heiress' back and forced her to take a few steps forward.

"Come on, Hinata-chan, I've been dieing to see you Juuken in action ever since Yugito-sensei told me about it!" Naruto exclaimed, for once keeping his voice at a respectable volume. If anything, the young man's words had the opposite effect on Hinata than what he intended as her blush increased in intensity and she had even begun to tremble.

Sakura had seen this happen far to many time while in the academy to not know what was coming next. She and her sensei both sighed heavily when Hinata suddenly fell limply into the arms of her pink-haired teammate. In fact, the only one who appeared surprised by what had happened was the only male member of their team.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked worriedly, even as he helped Sakura lower the limp body of their unconscious teammate to the ground.

It was left to Yugito to answer his question as Sakura could only bring herself to roll her eyes skyward and pray to whom ever was out there that her idiot teammate wasn't truly that naive. If a part of her hadn't recognized that his naivety more than likely stemmed from the fact that he had grown up without knowing the love of a parent, Sakura might had been tempted to punch him in the side of the head.

"No, Naruto, you didn't. I suppose this is my fault for placing Hinata at the center of attention without any kind of warning." Yugito sighed, silently cursing herself as she knew that with Hinata lying on the ground unconscious, she wouldn't be able to give Sakura and Naruto a proper demonstration unless she sparred with a clone and she really didn't want to do that. Clones were easy to destroy and she had honestly been hoping to boost Hinata's confidence by showing Naruto and Sakura how powerful her style of taijutsu could be when paired with her Byakugan. "But there is little about it I can do now, so we're going to get started and Hinata can join us when she wakes up."

Luckily, when Hinata's pearl-like eyes began to flutter open, Naruto and Sakura had only just finished a series of punches and kicks against the training logs their sensei had been leaning against when they first arrived. Once her team noticed that she had regained consciousness, Sakura offered her an understanding, yet almost pitying, smile, while Naruto could only bring himself to give her a tiny wave of his hand, apparently reluctant to do much of anything out of fear of her fainting again. Her attention was drawn away from the blond as her sensei knelt down in front of her.

"I need to speak to you for a moment. Privately." Yugito said, the last word was said while sending Naruto and Sakura a look that said quite plainly to leave the area until she said otherwise. Even as she moved to seat herself next to her student, Yugito realized that Hinata must had assumed that she was upset with her as she looked as though she were mere moment away from crying. As a shinobi, the young woman was almost pitiful, and yet Yugito and so many other knew she had such potential if she could only gain a little more confidence in herself. "First and foremost, Hinata, I want you to know that I am not angry with you. What happened was my fault and, to a lesser extent, Naruto's, although he still doesn't understand why you fainted when he touched you. You really do like me, don't you?"

"Y-Yes." Hinata whispered, ducking her head so that her sensei couldn't see how brightly her cheeks were burning. "I-It isn't j-just b-because I f-find him h-handsome. I... I admire him."

"Why is that?"

"B-Because his life has b-been so p-painful, b-because h-he has had to s-struggle to attain w-what m-most take for gr-granted, and y-yet... any yet h-he can still sm-smile. I-I'm t-terrified of f-failing, of b-being seen as n-nothing m-more than a b-burden... I w-want to have his st-strength, I w-want to be able to p-pick m-myself up, b-brush myself off, and t-try again and again u-until I g-get it right, re-regardless of w-what other p-people may say."

After watching the young Hyuuga roughly wipe the tears from her eyes, Yugito found herself in an awkward situation. She knew that she was supposed to somehow comfort her student, but she had never had much experience in dealing with other people or their emotions. In Kumo she would rarely interact with others outside of mission and even then it was usually about an upcoming or past mission. Very slowly the Jinchuuriki placed her and on the young woman's shoulder before sliding it across until her arm was wrapped around the Hyuuga. Hinata seemed to tense for a moment but Yugito felt her relax once she realized what was happening. Apparently she was doing something right.

"While he may be a good deal more intelligent than he had led others to believe, Naruto still finds it hard to understand certain things because of how he has been treated all of his life. He has grown up with the dream of becoming Hokage, of earning the respect of everyone in this village, and because of that he has learned to ignore those who say that such a dream is impossible for a monster."

"N-Naruto-kun isn't..." Hinata started, only to realize that she had begun shouting at her sensei without thinking. She immediately bowed her head in apology so she failed to see the amused look on the face of the Jounin.

"I know that _we _are not monsters." Yugito said, reminding the young Genin that she could understand Naruto in a way that few others could. She then watched as Hinata lifted her head but could only bring herself to chew on her bottom lip with a hopeless expression on her face. Without thinking, Yugito lifted her arm from the young woman's shoulders and gently laid her hand on top of the girls head. "I understand, Hinata, so do not let it trouble you. Now then, because of the fact that Naruto has had so few people in his life that he could count on or believe in, he has been forced to learn a lesson that makes him what he is, what you admire so much. The importance of self-confidence. Fear and a severe lack of confidence are the only things keeping you from gaining the kind of strength you long for so desperately."

"B-But I'm s-scared that if..."

"Of course you're scared! Listen, Naruto is an idiot, and that is why he is able to completely ignore what others may say about him and continue to lift himself up off the ground. Sometimes, as hard as it is to believe, you just have to be an idiot. After all, only an idiot would continue to stand when facing an obviously superior opponent. Only an idiot could refuse to allow so many glares and whispered threats to get to them. Only an idiot would refuse to give up even when their entire body is broken and battered. Only an idiot would refuse to take the easy way out and become what other believe them to be, a burden or a monster. Only an idiot would try to hard to protect a world that can't understand them. Only an idiot would willingly sacrifice theirself to protect the very village that made them what they are and yet refused to accept them. In the end you just have to ask yourself something."

"W-What?" stuttered Hinata, although even she wasn't sure if it was her usual stutter or one brought on by her sensei speech. The fact that it had made so much sense had left the young Hyuuga questioning her sanity.

"If it meant gaining the strength you so admire, could you be an idiot?"

"I... I d-don't know." she whispered, feeling as though any answer she gave would leave her feeling... insulted. If she said she could than she had just basically called herself an idiot, but on the other hand, if she didn't, she might never be able to change into the person she longed to be. In the end she felt that it came down to which meant more to her, not being an idiot or becoming the person who had the kind of strength she admired. "I.. I'd l-like to th-think that I c-could be an i-idiot."

Yugito couldn't help but laugh at the look on the young Genin's face; she clearly hadn't come by her answer easily. "I want you to spar against a few of Naruto's clones. This way you will have no reason to fear permanently harming him while at the same time you will be able to show both him and Sakura why you style of fighting it so greatly feared."

"I-I..." Hinata said but her sensei wasn't listening, she was far to busy calling for Sakura and Naruto to join them. Silently Hinata added to the list of things and idiot does; like ignoring their student when their obviously very uncomfortable with a given situation.

"Naruto." Yugito began the moment both Sakura and the blond stopped in front of her. "I want you to create a pair of clones for Hinata to spar with. For the time being she is still reluctant to use her taijutsu style on another person so, to allow her to practice without fear, you and I will be creating clones for her to fight against."

Before Hinata even realized what was happening she found herself standing in the center of the clearing with two copies of the same smiling blond. The fact that there was not one but three copies within her line of sight, the original was standing next to Sakura and Yugito off to her right, very nearly had her falling to the ground as her knees grew weak. When a sudden rush of thoughts that she would never admit to having over came her, Hinata shook her head roughly and forced her mind to focus on the task at hand. The last thing she wanted to do was make a fool of herself in front of the one person whose opinion of her meant so very much.

"Yugito-sensei told us about your kekkei genkai and taijutsu style so we aren't going to hold back, Hinata-chan!" announced the Naruto on the left, although both appeared very happy with the chance they had been given to learn first hand about her style of fighting.

Naruto may have never had any formal lessons aside from what was taught in the academy but she had watched him enough to know that he had the makings of a taijutsu specialist. Not only was he very quick on his feet, but he was very... _unique _in his attacks, making him difficult to read. Then, if that hadn't been enough, he also had a seemingly limitless supply of stamina at his disposal so his wild and excessive movements rarely left him winded before the end of a fight. In Hinata's mind, Naruto's unpredictability in everything he did made him a dangerous opponent, not that many aside from herself had realized this. Most saw his lack of any formal form and simply brushed him off as not being worth their time. She supposed that constantly being underestimated was also a trait that would serve him will later in life, much like it could herself if she learned to move past her fears and actually use it in her favor.

"Hinata-chan?"

"S-Sorry." she whispered, cursing herself for becoming lost in her thoughts when she was about to spar against an opponent that had the power to hurt her if she wasn't focusing. After quickly bringing her right hand in front of her face, she silently activated the doujutsu that made her clan known the world over.

As the veins surrounding her eyes began to pulse, Hinata took one last deep, calming breath before shifting into the Juuken stance that had been drilled into her head as a child. With the majority of her weight concentrated on her first leg, Hinata placed her left foot lightly on the ground in front of her, her open hands held in a way that had her right down around her waistline while the left was nearly straight out in front of her. Even to a pair of eyes as untrained as Naruto's, it was a stance that may have seemed simple but even he could tell that it would allow Hinata to shift her weight perfectly and move to counter any attack he threw at her.

From the sideline, Naruto was practically drooling.

"Naruto, are your clones going to attack her any time soon or are they going to just stand there admiring her stance!" Sakura roared, not so gently punching the original in the arm as if telling him to make his clones do something.

Sakura had a point too. Naruto's clones had much the same reaction to Hinata's stance and eyes as the original, which did little to further the spar they were supposed to be having with the young Hyuuga heiress. While Yugito and Sakura found themselves sighing heavily and rolling their eyes when all three Narutos offered identical nervous laughs before reaching up and scratching the back of their head, Hinata refused to allow her concentration to be broken by the way the Narutos were looking at her or she knew she would faint once again. She silently gave thanks when the two copies suddenly stopped admiring the position her body was in and looked entirely focused on their coming match.

Suddenly, the pair of blonds launched themselves towards the young Hyuuga in an attempt to catch her off guard. Even as a series of punches and kicks rained down on her, Hinata began to parry each and every blow with little trouble. It wasn't until the pair began alternating between high and low strikes that Hinata found herself pressed to defend herself. As one sent a kick speeding towards her face and the other attempted to sweep her legs out from under her, Hinata shocked everyone present by bending backwards and grabbing the leg speeding by her face while using it's momentum to allow her to flip backwards, taking her legs off the ground an instant before the clone attempted to do the same.

Shocked by the display, neither clone even thought to defend itself when Hinata spun on her heels and slammed her open palms into each of their chest. Other than a soft grunt for the in pain, they offered no other reaction before disappearing in a sudden cloud of smoke. While the spar hadn't lasted long, Hinata still found herself sweating heavily and gasping for breath, this may have had more to do with _who _she had been starring against than the spar itself, as she turned towards her team only to find them all staring back at her with varying degrees of disbelief.

"Hinata-chan just kicked my ass!" shouted Naruto, who, much to the surprise of everyone present, didn't appear at all upset with the revelation that Hinata would utterly destroy him in a fight centered around taijutsu. Wondering if the other members of his team had seen the same thing he had, Naruto glanced towards Sakura and Yugito only to find them nodding in agreement.

"S-Sorry." she stuttered, nervously wringing her hands together even as she began to slowly close the distance between herself and the rest of her team. At the time her body had moved on its own and she hadn't given any thoughts as to how Naruto might react to her destroying his clones, but when she found herself standing directly in front of her team, she couldn't even begin to describe how she felt when she noticed that Naruto appeared to hold no grudge towards her for defeating his clones so easily. Although, she felt as though she should have known better since he had appeared so excited by seeing her kekkei genkai and taijutsu style in action.

"Don't be sorry, Hinata-chan, that was amazing!" Naruto countered, still looking at Hinata with nothing short of amazement shinning in his eyes. If anything, the way he was looking at her had Hinata's heart pounding in her chest far more powerfully than it had during her spar with his clones.

"And here I thought that Naruto was one I should be watching when it came to, shall we say, resourcefulness?" Yugito mused, truly doubting that her student had been taught what to do when two opponents attack at the same time, one attacking high while the other low. What Hinata had done had almost certainly come from split-second decision making. "Hinata, please tell your teammates how long you have been training in you families style of taijutsu."

"N-Nearly every d-day since I w-was th-three."

"That, Naruto, Sakura, is the difference between someone who had been training in the Hyuuga's Juuken as apposed to someone who only received lessons through the academy." Yugito announced, offering her student a look that was almost pleading for her to understand why she had once again become the focus of her teammate's attention. She didn't think that the young woman minded too much, not with the attention her crush was finally paying her. If Hinata managed to keep from fainting, Yugito felt that she would come away from the encounter feeling a bit better about herself, and in her mind that it was worth her student being slightly angry at her. That is, if Hinata were angry to begin with.

"That really was amazing, Hinata." Sakura told her fellow kunoichi, smiling herself when Hinata opened her mouth to respond only to have her voice fail her, which only seemed to make the poor girl blush that much more.

"Naruto." Yugito began, but it wasn't until she cleared her throat loudly that she was able to draw her student's attention away from the young Hyuuga. "Since you have never been taught a formal style, you have learned to overcome this by being completely unpredictable in your movements and attacks. This is not such a terrible thing by any means, however..."

"Of course." Naruto muttered, only to be ignored by his sensei while his teammates offered him a pair of sympathetic smiles.

"However, you try so hard to confuse your opponents that you allow your mind to get in the way of your body, of your instincts. You place so much time and effort into being unpredictable that your body almost doesn't know what to do when the time comes for you to attack. In taijutsu, training and experience are everything. The reason being, as I'm sure Hinata could tell you, is that both allow you to train your body to react in a given situation. Such as blocking or deflecting an attack before you are even aware of what is happening. Training and experience are all that set Hinata apart from both Sakura and yourself."

"Basically she's telling you to calm down and stop running around like some baby monkey on a sugar rush." added Sakura with a teasing smile, while Naruto's only reply came in the form of a look that told her quite clearly that he was not amused. This, however, look did nothing to stop Yugito from nodding in agreement, much to his displeasure.

After seeing that his look was not having the desired affect, Naruto sighed softly and once again found himself focused on the young Hyuuga who had utterly amazed him only moments ago. He had always secretly paid far more attention to Hinata than most realized, but even he had no idea that she was capable of holding off two attackers at once. Naruto new that he had his faults when it came to taijutsu but he also knew that he was not slow and he certainly didn't lack power, so it had shocked him greatly to see his clones defeated so effortlessly by the young woman no one believed could harm a fly.

_She might not be able to harm a fly, but she can certainly kick a persons' ass. _Thought the young man before a hand was suddenly waved right before his eyes. His own cheeks began to burn when he realized that every member of his team, Hinata included, had noticed him staring at the young peal-eyed Hyuuga. _Great... This is just what I need._

"As I was saying." Yugito said, pausing only slightly to send a not so hidden look between Naruto and the blushing kunoichi at her side. "Starting tomorrow we will be focusing almost solely on taijutsu; I will leave it to each of you to continue training in chakra control on your own time but the extra training will still be available. We will then begin to incorporate the weapons you've each chosen when they are finished. Until then, you are all dismissed."

Nothing she had told them had come as much of a shock so Yugito wasn't terribly surprised when her two female students bowed before saying their goodbyes to both herself and Naruto. It wasn't until they had both exited the clearing that Yugito created two of her own clones before sending them after her students. When she turned back to the only one of her students that was still by her side, she noticed that he had been greatly confused by her actions.

"Perhaps I am simply being paranoid, but it has gotten late and I wish to make sure that both Hinata and Sakura arrive home safely. Hinata is the heiress of one of Konoha's most prestigious clans, and I know first hand how much some countries will sacrifice to get their hands on her eyes."

"They are pretty amazing." Naruto agreed, sighing almost wistfully as the memories he had received from of his clones flashed before his eyes for what seemed like the hundredth time since they had been destroyed. When he realized that his words hadn't remained in his head like he had believed, he found himself struggling to keep his blush at a respectable level.

"I was wondering." mused Yugito, for once choosing not to tears her student. "What would you have done if you had been in her position?"

Naruto send his sensei a grateful look before thinking back to the way his clones attacked and nodding. "I doubt that I would have ever thought to use my opponents own attack the way Hinata-chan did, but I would have probably attempted the same thing in principle. The main difference being that I would have tried to lift myself into the air while staying in the small space between their attacks. What would you have done?"

"What Hinata did to dodge the attacks came as a surprise to even myself, but I'm assuming that you and Sakura were both so surprised that you failed to notice the only reason she was even able to dodge the way she did?"

"I... You're right." Naruto sighed. "I didn't see anything other than what Hinata had done."

"That is understandable, Naruto, as anyone would have been shocked, but it is possible to be surprised and still remaining vigilant. What you and Sakura failed to notice was that the attacks did not come at the same time; the leg sweep came only seconds after the initial attack to her head. If they had been in sync than she would have never had time to grab hold of your clone's leg before her legs were taken out from under her. Knowing this, I would have simply ducked under the initial attack to my face while stepping forward, placing myself out of range of the second before going on the attack."

"Do you think Hinata noticed the speed of the attacks as well?"

"More than likely. Hinata may very well be your equal when it comes to unpredictability in a fight. In any case, you should try asking her for advice when neither of you are training under me. I'm sure she wouldn't mind helping _you_." Yugito teased, finding it hard to control her laughter as Naruto ducked his head and began lightly kicking at the ground in front of him. "Let's go, neither of us have really eaten much of anything today and we now have an entire kitchen stocked with food. Food you need to learn how to prepare if you are to survive without ramen."

()()()()()()()

In the days that followed the members of Team Nine did little aside from training under their sensei, and Hinata if she happened to be close by and wasn't too busy with her own training, in taijutsu. Their days began at five o'clock every morning and after going to collect their mission from the Hokage, they devoted the rest of the day to advancing their abilities; they had gone back to sending Naruto and Yugito's clones out to complete their missions so that they could focus on training. Despite the length and intensity of their training, Naruto and the others still found themselves asking for any form of extra training from their sensei once she had dismissed them. Still, their dedication had begun to bare fruit as their spars together were lengthening to the point where was no clear winner when their sensei decided to call for them to stop. At times they were barely able to drag themselves out of the training ground after practice, but no one could bring theirself to complain.

On the morning of the fifth day since they had begun to train exclusively in taijutsu, the Genin of Team Nine found themselves standing in front of their Hokage, each of them looking as if they had just been given their hearts greatest desire. Their day had begun like any other, meaning they had approached the Hokage expecting to get their team's mission, but instead were shocked to learn that he had been in touch with Ookami and had been told that their weapons were ready. Not only that, but he had decided to give them all the day off in order to familiarize themselves with their new weapons. While Naruto was the only one who dared to leap across the desk and hug their Hokage tightly in his arms while whispering how much he loved the elderly man, Sakura and Hinata looked as though they truly wanted to.

Once Yugito was finally able to remove her blond student from the Sandaime, Team Nine wasted almost no time in returning to run down building that Ookami used. A shop that they found in the exact same condition as the last time they had been there, even down to Ookami himself standing behind the counter looking as though he had fallen asleep. Immediately upon spotting them as they entered his shop, Ookami's scarred and wrinkled face seemed to brighten greatly

"I see that Hizuren wasted no time in relaying my message." he mused, chuckling happily when Naruto raced forward so that he was standing directly across from the blacksmith, bouncing on the balls of his feet while gripping the counter tightly. "My, aren't we eager. I suppose I should start with you first, huh, Naruto-kun?"

"I-If you want." Naruto stuttered, but it was clear by the look in his eyes that if Ookami started with anyone else than there would be hell to pay.

Once again the elderly man found himself laughing softly by the young man's antics, even as he took a step away from the counter and began searching for the weapon Naruto had chosen. Every once in a while he would glance back towards Naruto to make sure that his excitement was building, despite the fact that the weapon he had crafted was sitting right in front of him. After making a show of finally finding it, Ookami placed a long, thin bundle on the counter between him and Naruto.

Yugito and Sakura shared a look before rolling their eyes and sighing. Naruto hadn't even removed the plain white cloth and yet he was already running his trembling fingers over it while cooing softly as if it were a child. Hinata felt relieved that his attention was focused so entirely on the bundle as it meant that he would not notice the expression on her face as she watched him dot over the weapon Ookami had crafted for him. If he had turned his cerulean eyes towards her she didn't think she could stop herself from squealing loudly before throwing her arms around him, only to faint moments later once she realized what she had done.

While none of them could match the look in Naruto's eyes once he had finally unwrapped the weapon and lifted it off of the counter, every single one of them felt that they were in the presence of one of the most beautifully crafted weapons they would ever see in their lives. For the most part it appeared as though Naruto had taken Yugito's advice and asked Ookami to make him a bladed weapon, however, he had not asked for a katana or a wakizashi. It was clear to Yugito that, by the size of the bladed weapon, her student had chosen a nodachi. While the length of the blade made it one that few shinobi would ever dream of wielding, it seemed to suit the young blond rather well so she couldn't bring herself to offer a single objection. Uzumaki Naruto was simply too unpredictable to try and force conformity onto him.

Despite the weapon's beauty, it was actually very plain. Everything from the saya(scabbard) to the wrappings surrounding the tsuka(hilt) were of the darkest black. So dark, in fact, that it appeared as if the polished wood of the saya was absorbing the light rather than reflecting it. The only part of the nearly four foot long weapon that had any amount of color was the cloth that would allow the young Jinchuuriki to wear his newest weapon on his back, which appeared to be the same shade of green as his pants. What none of them had been expecting had been when Naruto gently pulled the blade from its casing to reveal a gleaming blade just as dark, just as black as most of his newest weapon.

"So?" Ookami asked after watching the young Genin swing the blade out in front of him before sliding it back into the saya, only to slide the entire thing onto his back. It took the young man a few moments before the sash was in a comfortable position but soon Naruto was smiling back at him as if he had just personally named him the Hokage's replacement.

"Let's just say that if you ever need help with anything, just ask." Naruto replied, his smile failing as all teases of humor vanished from his face. The look of utter sincerity only lasted until he had moved out from in front of the counter because when he turned to watch Hinata take his place, Yugito noticed that there was a slight curve to the corners of his lips.

Ookami looked down at the young woman as she shifted nervously before him, almost as if she felt that it would be rude if she asked for her weapon outright, and found it nearly impossible not to smile. He had been in the village for many years and had dealt with more than his fair share of Hyuuga-tachi, and his still found it hard to believe that the kind, painfully shy young lady before him was a member of the clan which, he found to be rather arrogant. Of course there was also the obvious crush she had for the one person who was practically loathed by the entire village.

"Hinata-kun, I must admit that I am rather looking forward to seeing your reaction to the weapon I have made for you." he admitted, before turning to the large cabinet and removing a long, thin bundle. Even as he turned back to the counter and handed Hinata her weapon, it was obvious to those before him that he was had been telling the truth when he told Hinata that he had been looking forward to seeing her reaction.

Unlike Naruto, Hinata wasted no time in removing the cloth from her weapon of choice to reveal, as everyone had expected, a long metal staff that appeared to be nearly three times longer than the young Hyuuga's arm. The quick look to the others in the room told Naruto that he wasn't the only one who was amazed by the seemingly simple staff, none more so than Hinata herself. Even as she held the staff in both hands and began to slowly spin it in circles, Naruto had just been about to comment on the beauty of the staff's milky-white color when Hinata turned towards him and he realized that it had been the same color as her eyes. Despite the fact that his thoughts had remained locked inside his mind, thankfully, Naruto still felt rather embarrassed for even knowing it himself.

That's when it happened. Just as Hinata had finished spinning the staff and held it firmly in both of her hands, the entire thing seemed to collapse. Hinata gave a sound that seemed to be a cross between a whimper and a squeal as she turned her milky-white eyes towards Ookami only to find him smiling wider than any of them had ever seen. Now that he looked closer, the sections of the staff that he had foolishly believed had collapsed appeared to be hanging from the center most section by small length of chain.

"As you can see, Hinata-kun, what I've made for you is not a staff, but a sansetsukon(three-section staff). While the pieces are locked together, it is able to act as the staff you wished for, but a simple flick of the wrist can separate any of the sections. Thus giving you the element of surprise as well as a grater chance of scoring even a glancing blow. While it will be difficult to master, I would not have made these modifications if I did not have absolute faith in your ability to do just that."

Hinata found that she wasn't upset, rather she was unable to keep form staring down at the strange staff in her hands in awe, even as she slid her fingers along one of the dangling sections before attempting to reconnect it to the center portion. She found that Ookami had been correct, the pieces locked together easily and securely, almost to the point that she would have continued to assume that it was a normal staff if she hadn't just seen what she had. She also quickly realized that one of her fears had been alleviated, whether he realized this or not, by Ookami's modifications. It hadn't been long after leaving the weapons shop for the first time that she began to doubt the practicality of her chosen weapon. She was a shinobi and a staff three times the length of her arm would surely limit her range of motion and would be practically useless if a battle moved into closed quarters. By dividing the staff into three, with each section the length of one of her arms, she would be to carry it without fear of being restricted as well as us on of the sections alone if her surroundings didn't allow her to utilize her entire staff.

"I hope that these modifications are to your liking." said the blacksmith suddenly, forcing Hinata's thoughts away from her staff and back towards the elderly man.

"I... I-I love it. Th-Thank you." Hinata whispered softly, before bowing and moving off to the side as Naruto had done before her so that Sakura could collect her weapon as well. A part of her wondered if it was really okay for them to accept such amazing weapons for simply helping the kind man in his shop. The work in the forge had been difficult, but it had been she had been though worse during training, and she had never received anything so beautiful from that. Once again shaken from her thoughts, this time by the sound of Sakura emitting a rather loud, and excited, squeal as she unwrapped the small bundle Ookami had placed in front of her.

Sakura felt her cheeks begin to burn even as the loud sound passed through her lips, but she simply couldn't help it. The weapon before her was simply to beautiful, and that fact that it was hers only seemed to make it more so. Her weapon, a wakizashi, was far more decorative than either Naruto's or Hinata's but Sakura somehow knew that Ookami would not give her a weapon that could not be used in battle. Even as she lightly ran her fingers over the strange tsuba, Sakura found herself cooing much like Naruto had when she realized that the pale pink metal was in the shape of her namesake, a sakura(cherry blossom). Her love for the weapon only seemed to intensify as she traced her fingers along the saya, or rather the etchings of sakura peddles that donned it. The pale pink color of the tsuba and the etchings seemed such a contrast to the others black as night wakizashi but, if anything, this fact only seemed to cause the sudden tightening of her chest to increase.

"I-It's beautiful." Sakura whispered, as she gently took it into her hands and slowly released the gleaming black blade from the saya.

"It is more decorative than I am used to making, but my hands seemed to move on their own while I was crafting this weapon. Since it lacks that ability to channel chakra, I found a way to modify your weapon as well to make it just as special as the rest." Ookami explained, before lifting the saya from the counter and grabbing hold of the very bottom portion of it. Every eye in the shop was focused intently on the man's movements as the elderly man removed a second, much smaller, blade from within.

"A hidden tanto." Yugito announced, sounding both surprised and pleased by the hidden weapon. Looking at her pupil, she continued. "How is the grip?"

"Perfect." stated Sakura, who had expected the glossy surface to slide around in her hand because of the glossy surface but found that it remained perfectly still. The length of the tsuka(hilt) was just longer than the width of her hand, and after examining it closely Sakura found that a few of the sakura peddle etchings were found on it. It had not been expected, but it was by no means unwelcome either.

"Channel your chakra into it." Ookami suddenly advised.

Sakura sent him an odd look but did as the man asked. After all, he had just given her such a beautiful weapon for working one day in his shop. As she began to channel her chakra into the small bladed weapon, Sakura gasped loudly at what happened next. She hadn't been the only one either, as the sounds of gasping had come from every person in the shop, aside from Ookami himself, when the black blade of the tanto suddenly surrounded by what looked like a pink mist. After waving the blade to the side, a pink streak seemed to make the path the blade had traveled before fading.

"O-Ookami-sama, this is too much." Yugito whispered, staring at the blade in such a way that it was clear to her team that she knew exactly what was happening.

Ookami, however, simply scoffed at her comment. "Child, my shop is rather successful so I want for nothing and I greatly enjoyed the time I spent with your students. Crafting weapons is my life, my passion, and after seeing how Naruto-kun and Hinata-kun's weapons turned out, I couldn't allow this young lady to walk out of here with a simple wakizashi."

"S-Sensei, what _is _this?" Sakura asked, still mesmerized by the pink hue surrounding the short blade of her tanto.

"That, Sakura, is by no means a simple tanto. It is a chakra fang." she explained, only to continue once she realized that her words meant absolutely nothing to her students. "A chakra fang is very rare weapon, and _very _difficult to craft; Ookami being one of the only ones left in the world who know how to craft one. In a sense, although it is not quite as drastic, it mimics what a person using the Wind element can do to a bladed weapon. By channeling your chakra into it, it becomes stronger and the cutting power is increased but this is nothing when compared to what makes a chakra fang such a formidable weapon. Sakura, please swing the blade again."

Although she looked uncertain, Sakura did as her sensei asked and swung the blade out in front of her, once again causing a pink steak to appear where the blade had been. Sakura then turned her attention back to her sensei just in time to see her grab the cloth the weapon had been wrapped in before tossing it at the strange pink streak that had appeared in midair. As the cloth fell to the ground in two sections, Sakura felt her jaw drop. The odd streak of light that had appeared when she swung the tanto had actually _cut _the cloth as if it had been the sharpened blade of a katana.

"As it is swung, a chakra fang condenses the chakra the user channeled into it and creates a kind of extension of the blade itself." Yugito said, the pink trail already beginning to fade. It had nearly disappeared when she reached forward and pressed her finger against the fading light and at once a small, and rather shallow, cut appeared. "As it fades, so does its cutting power. It was by wielding a chakra fang that Hatake Sakumo, tou-san of Hatake Kakashi, gained the nickname Konoha no Shiroi Kiba(Konoha's White Fang)."

"It is a pity that it was destroyed." sighed Ookami mournfully. "It was probably one of my best works, and it could probably be repaired but Kakashi-kun refuses to even come near my shop. I think he is too ashamed that it was destroyed to face me. Foolish child. He should understand that no weapon, no matter how expertly crafted, lasts forever."

"S-Sensei was right, Ookami-sama, I couldn't possibly accept this. It's just too..." Sakura began, but was interrupted as the elderly man smiled and said.

"Sorry, no refunds or returns. Store policy."

"I-I... Naruto, shut up!" she shouted as her blond teammate began roaring with laughter, and when she turned towards him to no doubt try and physically silence him, she found that even her fellow female teammate was giggling softly behind her hand. For some reason, seeing the pearl-like eyes of the young Hyuuga sparking with delight caused Sakura's anger towards her teammates to collapse in on itself.

"J-Just smile and say thank you, Sakura-chan, because I doubt that you're going to leave this building without those weapons." stated Naruto, who was visibly struggling to control his laughter rather than risk upsetting his teammate any further. It wasn't so much because he felt bad for laughing at her, but that he _really _didn't want to be hit by the kunoichi. He had long since learned that Sakura was able to call upon a source of frightening strength when she wished to exact her revenge on him for something he had done. This revenge usually involved her fist impacting with his face.

Sakura, who had turned her attention back to Ookami in the hopes that if she stared at him long enough that perhaps he would give in, appeared as though she had been about to shout at him once again when the elderly man began to grinned in a way that told her that Naruto had been right. Looking down at the pair of beautiful weapons resting in the equally beautiful saya, Sakura sighed gently before looking back at the scarred face of the master blacksmith.

"I... I still don't feel as though I deserve this, but thank you, Ookami-sama. These are the most beautiful weapons I have ever seen in my life."

Ookami smiled kindly down at Sakura before looking at the crimson-eyed Jounin standing off to the side. After reaching under the counter once more, he removed a small scroll before handing it to the beautiful Jounin. "Yugito-kun, I was told by Hizuren that you are proficient with a great number of weapons, is that correct?"

"It is." she replied, glancing down at the scroll in her hands before shifting her gaze back to the elderly man behind the counter. While she may have appeared as though Ookami's question had been almost expected, Yugito was actually forced to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Once again the Sandaime Hokage proved that he knew far more about her abilities than he let on, as she and the elderly man had never once discussed how capable she was in armed combat. One of these days she was going to have to sit down with the elderly man and find out exactly what he knew about her and how he had come by such information to begin with.

"Very good." began Ookami, before motioning towards the scroll in her hands. "Sealed in that scroll you will find wooden replicas of each weapon your students now wield so that you may begin their training without having to worry about anything other than blunt-force trauma. This replicas are weighted so that they are equal to the originals so the transition between the wooden copies and the originals will be simple."

"Thank you, Ookami-sama." Yugito said, who sounded rather pleased that she wouldn't be to wait until they were able to wield their weapons without harming themselves before she began sparring with them. Weapons training could be time consuming, and Ookami had given her a way of speeding that up by eliminating both the chance of them harming themselves or their sparring partner and the transition phase usually needed when switching between wooden and metal weapons caused by the difference in weight.

"Now, if you will excuse me, the academy has placed a rather large order for shuriken and kunai that I must get started on." Ookami told them, looking and sounding as though he truly didn't want to see them go despite wanting and needing to return to his work. He loved crafting weapons, it had been his entire purpose for living, but he could not deny how much he had enjoyed meeting Naruto and his team.

"Then we shall allow you to return to your work." she said calmly, before she turned and made her way out of the shop, leaving her students to follow quickly behind her. Once they were all gathered outside the building, Yugito turned and offered her team a sort of smirk that none of them found comforting. "Be at our training ground in five minutes."

"This is going to be painful, isn't it?" Naruto whimpered, finding the look in their sensei's eyes oddly reminiscent to a predator stalking its prey.

"Yes, but what I have in mind will make it so that one of you will find it far more painful than the others." she replied, before disappearing in a vortex of lightning.

Despite how reluctant they may have seemed, the Genin of Team Nine soon arrived at their training ground, well inside the five minute mark, to find their sensei standing beside two clones. Every one of them cringed slightly when all three copies turned towards them and smiled. To those who were not used to dealing with the crimson-eyed Jounin, these smiles may have been seen as her attempt to comfort her uneasy students. Hinata, Sakura, and Naruto, however, knew better. Their smiles were nothing more than an attempt to loll them into a false sense of security, like the still surface of a lake that hide from view that it was infested with venomous creatures.

Even as her students continued to send her weary looks, Yugito began to wonder how she had ever survived before becoming a shinobi of Konoha, before becoming a sensei to Naruto, Hinata, and Sakura. As hard as if was for her to believe, the Jinchuuriki found that there were actually times when her she had smiled so much that it left her cheeks feeling soar. Although she still found herself smirking far more often than actually smiling, to be able to show any emotion at all was still as rather foreign concept to her. Still, as much as she enjoyed their time together and as much as she had grown to care for them, the life of a shinobi was far too dangerous for her not to train them to the best of her ability. If at times her training had them wishing that they had never met her, then so be it.

"Beginning tomorrow morning, this team will begin practicing twice a day." she announced once she saw that every member of her team had finally managed to catch their breath, Sakura taking a good deal longer than Naruto to accomplish this. "Morning practices will be dedicated to taijutsu, while the afternoon practices will be dedicated to armed combat. At the end of the week, if I believe that you have progressed far enough in both, we will begin to incorporate ninjutsu and chakra control training back into our workouts. For today, you will each be sparring against me in armed combat."

"Sensei, earlier you mentioned that one of us would find our training a lot harder than the others. What did you mean?" inquired Sakura, who immediately began to wonder if she wasn't about to regret having asked this when her sensei's smirk widened.

"As you can see, there are three copies of myself standing before you." Yugito began, as she motioned to the two clones standing at her side. "Each of us representing a different difficulty. In a moment I will ask each of you to choose one of us, and after this is done we will reveal to you what it is you have chosen. Think of this as a type of roulette."

"Y-You sadistic bit..." Naruto began, only to find himself silenced by Sakura as she slapped her hand over his mouth. The look on her face told him that she might have very well agreed with his description of their sensei but she clearly felt as though insulting said woman would only make their situation worse. A brief look towards his sensei had him silently thanking his teammate for potentially saving his life.

"Naruto, since you seem so _eager, _why don't you choose first?" Yugito offered in a tone of voice that, while sweet, didn't fool Naruto or any of the others for a second.

"I'm sure as hell not picking you." Naruto muttered before picking the copy on the far right.

"Hinata?"

The Hyuuga heiress looked as though she might faint before whispering something as she moved towards the copy of their sensei who had been speaking.

"Sakura, I know you don't exactly have a choice, but you may yet find yourself being one of the lucky ones." stated the finally copy, before the clone Naruto picked continued.

"The difficulties we represent are on a scale of one to three. One being the base, two being twice as difficult as one, and three, as you can imagine, is three times more difficult than one."

"Please tell me you represent one." Naruto pleaded with his copy, only to have her shake her head while grinning evilly. "Two?"

"Three." she said simply, causing both Hinata and Sakura to sigh in relief while Naruto groaned loudly and cursed the fact that, for once, his luck in games of chance had failed him. He was so wrapped up in kicking a small rock he had found that he failed to notice the look the three copies had shared between them. Hinata and Sakura, however, had noticed it but they were still so grateful that they had chosen the representatives for two and one respectively, that neither put much thought into its significance.

"So, how is my training going to be three times more difficult than Sakura-chan's?" asked the cerulean-eyed Jinchuuriki, who still felt like kicking himself for his choice.

"It's rather simple actually." she said calmly as she brought her hands together in a familiar seal before three more clones appeared in a thick cloud of smoke. "Sakura will be sparring against me, as I am the original, while Hinata will spar against two of my clones. You, being the lucky one that you are, get to spar against three of my clones at the same time. Despite the numbers, none of us will be going easy on you."

Before long Naruto found himself standing opposite three copies of his sensei, each holding an identical copy of the wooden nodachi he had been given after Yugito unsealed them from the scroll she had been given from Ookami. Glancing around him, Naruto saw Hinata trembling before two staff wielding copies while Sakura wasn't exactly looking confident about facing even one armed copy of the white-haired Jounin. Turning his attention back to his opponents, an odd sound escaped his throat when he noticed the smirks they were giving him.

"Would you like to know a secret?" asked one of the clones.

"W-What?" Naruto stuttered, wincing sharply as his voice cracked painfully.

"You didn't pick three." admitted the clone, much to Naruto's disbelief. "Let this be a lesson to you, Uzumaki. Never call the person in charge of your training a bitch."

Before he was even given a chance to reply, the clone on the far right shot forward while aiming a blow at his head. Naruto felt his arms begin to tremble violently under the force of the attack as he was just barely able to life his nodachi in time. He knew that his strength was about to give out at any moment when he heard himself cry out in pain as the other two copies used his current situation to their advantage and attacked his unprotected sides. Immediately he dropped his arms to his sides in an attempt to shield them from taking any more direct hits. His sensei's clones, however, seemed to have no intention of allowing him a change to rest, a chance to heal. Before he was even aware of what had happened, Naruto found himself lying on his back, staring up at the still clear blue sky.

"Is that it, Uzumaki?" asked one of the clones as she moved into his field of vision, staring down at him with a look of disappointment in her eyes. "Can you only take this much? I had expected more from someone who wishes to be Hokage."

"N-Not Hokage." growled Naruto, as he rolled into his stomach and began to force himself back onto his feet. Despite swaying dangerously as he attempted to balance on a pair of unsteady legs, Naruto forced himself to remain upright by using his nodachi as he glared at the trio of copies. "I'm not just going to _be _Hokage. I'm going to be the _greatest _Hokage!"

"Prove it." challenged all three clones before readying themselves as Naruto griped the tsuka of his wooden nodachi and prepared to attack.

* * *

A/N:

Shortest chapter yet, mere 21 pages when using a size 12 Times New Roman font.

As I explained in the first chapter, I've list this under General simply because it contains a bit of everything at the moment. Later on this may, and probably will, change. It will more than likely change to include romance as either the first or second genre, and this fact is why I'm currently writing this. This is something I wish to make perfectly clear to those who bothered to read this far. I write romance, not word porn(as I've taken to calling it). I do not write lemons or limes or whatever. I have found that most cannot write a detailed sex scene to save their life and in most cases, but not all, it will ruin a story faster than anything else I can think of. The genre is romance, not smut, and because of this I will leave a great deal to the imagination when it comes to a couples physical relationship.

That aside, I hope you've enjoyed what has been posted. I'm working on chapter five at the moment but there is no telling when it will be posted.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: PLEASE READ:

As of October 3rd, hopefully, I'll be moving from Cali back to what I consider to be my hometown in IL. While I'm looking forward to the move as I'll be back around my family and friends, until I find a job and am able to save up enough, I won't have an Internet connection. Now I'll still be writing when I can, but whether or not I'll be able to update my stories depends on whether or not I can find a wifi spot or another connection to use. I beg those of you who are waiting for my next update to be patient with me.


End file.
